Phantasy Star Universe: Wings on the Star
by Nicktendonick
Summary: A retelling of Phantasy Star Portable 2. Three years after the events of Phantasy Star Universe and the SEED crisis, a simple job for freelance mercenary Mathis Klein throws him into a life and an adventure which he never expected.
1. Chapter 1 Universe 1 - The Rabbit hole

Damn it, I should have seen this coming.

These things never seem to end well. Damn chivalry, forcing me to do such stupid things. I suppose I shouldn't say that as it wouldn't have mattered at all, I still would have done this anyway. I guess it's just a part of who I am.

Well, was. Present tense doesn't describe the dead well.

Yep, that's right. I got myself killed. I took a blow for someone and got sent off the mortal coil for it. It's time like these that I really wish some things were more like fiction. In fiction, whenever someone's killed everything puts itself on pause so the dying person could say one last thing before they died. Sometimes it's to clear one's guilty conscience, that dramatic final speech to rally the troops to victory, or to confess their undying love to someone.

I really wish that happened to me. Right now I'm on the ground, with only a few seconds before I'm gone for good. The last thing my eyes saw was the girl whom I died for, crying over my body, saying something to me. I really wish I could hear her. My ears went the moment I hit the ground.

Damn it, today was going kinda good too. Now it just plain sucks.

My name is Mathis Klein

And I'm dead.

* * *

**Phantasy Star Universe: Wings on the Star**

By Nicktendonick

* * *

**Universe #1 – Spreading wings: awakening of an angel**

**Chapter 1 **

It's been a while since I've been in a relic site. I'd say about half a year. The places are dark, dangerous and dank. Sometimes they smell of wild creatures who came inside and made it their home, and usually you don't find anything good in them anymore. Virtually all them have been explored, raided, or converted into facilities in their own right by some group or organization. But every now and then a new Relic site will reveal itself waiting for both fortunate and unfortunate explorers to enter inside for valuable or priceless goodies. Or get themselves killed. The places are damn dangerous, and usually not worth the paycheck.

When I think about it, I really wonder what type of people made these relic sites in the first place. I know our predecessors made them to combat the invasion of alien space horde called the SEED, but sometimes it's a little too much. Whomever our predecessors were they did not want anything getting in. With how they designed these relic sites they made damn sure that anything that did get inside would never leave alive.

I wonder what type of people they were.

Hm, speaking of people I ought to introduce myself. My name is Mathis Klein, I'm freelancer, and a young one at that. I'm 17 years old, and I'm about to become 18 in two days. I do jobs around my home-planet Parum, traveling from place to place to fit a client's whims. I do small time stuff, stuff you wouldn't hire a big name (and costly) organization like the Guardians for. Random generic stuff you know.

Granted though, I may be small time, but my skills aren't. My father trained me and my sister as a kid, and since the chaos of the SEED invasion three years ago I've honed my skills and took my muscle to the market. And said skills pay the bills, and it's been why I actually managed to make money doing this. It isn't much, but figuring my living condition it's nice to have some extra money on the side to buy things.

…and being able to legally kick major ass and get paid for it. Name me someone who wouldn't love that.

Anyway, this brings me to where I am now. Some organization whom I've never herd of before found this relics site and put a casting call out to every mercenary in the area to explore it for him. I would have expected the Guardians to do this stuff, but hey, never look a gift Rappy in the mouth.

I'm in the line to earn about 78,000 to 12,000 Meseta depending on how well I do this job, and the paycheck should be in two days. It's going to make a great birthday gift to myself.

I was among many who had taken the request. We were right at the end of the safe zone in the relics side. When I think about it, to our predecessors this was probably a breakroom they had and kept it secure from the automated Stateria from breaking in and attacking everything inside.

"You having fun thinking off to yourself?" Said a voice behind me.

I turned around to confront the man.

It was a human dressed in a pure black leather trenchcoat with a dark green shirt, this man stood about 5'11 feet tall. Pitch black shades, dark pants, and hair as dark as the night itself accompanied the trenchcoat. I could tell he's been using hair dye.

This was our client.

"Hello sir." I said to him. "Is there anything you need at all sir?" Best be polite. Sans my morals, the guy is paying me after all.

"Thank you but it's not needed. I came down to check upon the people I've employed. That's all. How would one put it, ahh yes. To check to see if my actors were ready for their performance."

"I can promise you I definitely can perform." I replied.

The man smirked "And I have no doubts about that young one. I've already done my look around. I'll be waiting to see your results Mr. Klein"

I smiled. Guess my name was beginning to go around. I might get some bigger clients soon if I perform well here. I was about to speak but my client's communicator beat me to it. He took it out and recognized whomever was calling him.

"I suppose it's time for the show to start. I bid you adu and good luck." Said my client as he walked off. He pulled a communicator out and began to talk through.

"Quite the character." Said a new voice behind me.

"Yep, but he's paying quite well, so I'm not complaining." I said turning around to see an android humanoid CAST. Nice two tones of tan and black with a sleek frame. The guy looked like he was ready for anything.

"You mustn't have read the contract's fine print." He said to me. "He threw in some clauses for himself to get around not paying people. If you don't reach a low enough floor or if you try going back to the surface at all, he pays nothing."

Actually, I did know about this. I assumed his reason for being here was the same as mine. "I know that clause full well. Figuring you know that and you're still here, I assume you have no worries you'll make it to the bottom."

"Indeed. You?" He said back. I think he made sense that I wasn't just some wantabee kid. I'm beginning to like this guy already.

"Likewise." I said. "I figure even if I don't get paid I might find something worthwhile here. Undiscovered relic sites usually have something good inside them."

Seems like the CAST wasn't too sure about that "You shouldn't be too sure about that. There's no promises of anything further in. It's all uncharted territory. You might find nothing, or something that shouldn't be found. That I can tell you from expe-"

"Come on!" A new voice yelled. "Can we go home already? Please?"

A young girl's voice at that. Both of us herd it.

We both sighed.

The CAST was the one who spoke first. "This is no place for children. And I wager she's no mercenary"

Both of us paid attention to the girl. Even if we wanted to avoid her, it was loud enough to get everyone's attention. We just didn't because it'd be offending her.

She was a small human girl, looked a little younger then me with cute gold hair. She had a ahoge hairstyle and was decked in a red coat, brown shirt, and a tie that definitely wasn't put on right.

She was next to a Brown haired person in a purple coat. The guy was completely unshaved, looked like he just came out of a long sleep, or had never met a razor in his life.

"This is a relic site. A relic site do you hear me! Come on! You can't make me stay here! I'm going to get myself killed." Said the girl.

Seems like someone couldn't afford daycare.

"Feh, remind me why I pay you." Said the man

I take that back. An employee? Low hiring standards I assume.

The girl's attitude stopped the moment he said that. She was listening now.

"Look it's safe here." Began the man "You have absolutely nothing to worry about. So stop complaining and I'll go find some work for you to get your mind off this. Our client probably needs some handiwork "

"That guy's creepy. You sure?" She asked.

"Yes." He replied deadpanned and unamused. "Like I said stop complaining and Stay here. I'll be right back.

"Ok sir." She said, like a defeated child. Probably was anyway.

"Just don't wander off, You hear me? Stay put." He ordered before he walked off in the same direction of our client.

Why do people bring civilians to places like this? I take it she can't fight. Yes she's easy on the eyes but from this first impression of mine, that's all she was. I turned my attention back to the CAST.

I was planning on heading down the shaft and into the relic site more. It's time to get some allies to join me. I had this CAST's attention, and he seems like he's no slouch either.

"So, you want to head down together?" I asked "I figure it might make the trip a little easier then heading in alone."

"Sounds good. What's your loadout?" He inquired. It was best we accompanied eachother's strengths.

"Well, I have a…"

I felt a sharp pain in my head. It lasted for only a second, but the pain stopped me in my tracks.

"Are you o-" The CAST began to say before someone else cut him off.

We heard a agonizing moan. From little miss complains a lot of all people. The CAST turned first, and after the pain faded I did too. Whatever it was getting to her, she fell down to her knees in pain, her hands on the side of her head to try to comfort her brain.

From the girl's migraine, then came everything else. The room shook.

"Oh shit!" said someone else around us.

Couldn't be more true. We all knew what this meant. The Relic site had gone live and activated on it's own.

Remember how I said these relic sites were made to ensure that nothing inside stayed alive? We were inside that now.

"Everyone! The Site's gone live! Out of the chamber! Get out before the Stateria come!" Someone yelled.

We all knew what to do. We all dropped whatever we were doing and made a mad dash to the door. Everyone made it out. And I made it out just in time too. The doors began to creek, and would eventually lockdown and close.

"HEY! YOU! GET OVER HERE NOW!" I herd the same man yell. "Hurry! The Doors are closing!"

Who was he talking to though, who'd be dumb enough to be…

The girl, little miss complains-a-lot was still inside. She was recovering from whatever brought her down, girl wouldn't get off her knees.

Pity. The girl was going to get left behind, it'd be hours until someone gets here and frees her, and most likely she'd be killed by whatever's inside there long before she's found. If anyone left and went to save her, they'd get trapped too, and most likey die with her.

It was certain doom. Why should I get myself killed? I'm about to turn 18, I'm about to get a sweet paycheck, and my star is on the rise. Why risk it all for one girl I've never met?

Simple. It's the type of person I am.

I won't leave someone who needs help. It didn't matter who or what she was. She was in need, and I'm going to save her. I will not leave anybody. Especially to die. I swore that years ago, and vowed never to break it.

I ran from my safety towards her. I had to make this quick.

"HEY! YOU!" I yelled at her

If I could get her on her feet, we could make it back before the doors closed.

The girl was still out of it. "Huh?" she said in a weak voice. "Whatra"

"We have to get out of here now!" I yelled. I made it to her. I grabbed her arm and began to pull.

Worse case scenario happened. She pulled back. We were losing time, I wouldn't be able to carry her and make it in time, I had to make her move on her own.

"Ima…..I'm suppose to wait for…" She then noticed me. Finally. Her world seemed to be coming back to her.

She still seemed weak, and she still wouldn't move.

"Get on your feet! The Relic site's gone active! We have to get out of here!" I yelled at her.

Her body shocked herself. This is the reaction that people get when they get that splash of water when trying to wake up.

I'm not sure if we're going to make it. The doors had begun to close. I was really worried now, the thought that I just threw my life away in vain popped in my head.

"What did you say?" said the girl in shock.

"We have to go! Now!" I yelled. This time, her body complied. I pulled her to her feet and we began to run.

I saw the doors closing infront of us. I led her by the hand, she was still woozy but movable.

I looked at the doors, and my heart sank. I felt a grim feeling cast over me as my mind rushed and formed the answer. We weren't going to make it. I wasn't going to get there in time. I was going to be trapped.

But she didn't need to be. I only had a split second to act. If I hasted, we'd both meet our makers. I summoned all my might. I held her hand firm and swung her infront of me pushing her with all my might to the door.

If someone's going to get left behind here. It's me. It's not a civilian.

"GO!" I yelled, hoping she'd make it.

She didn't.

She didn't make it to the doors in time. They were too small for her to get through. She hit the closing door, just in time to catch the last sight of the rest of the mercenaries inside the safe area.

My heart sank as the doors closed on us.

"No!" She shouted, seeing freedom close right infront of her. So close, so close yet so far.

I hit the floor, my swing threw me off balance and onto the hard ground below.

"No…" I said to myself.

I failed to myself….I failed the girl.

We were stuck in a place where everything can and will try to kill us. A place where there would be no rescue until we were long dead.

* * *

**Chapter 1 - End**


	2. Chapter 2 - One Plus One

**Chapter 2**

**

* * *

**

The girl was banging on the shut door.

"Open up Will ya!" She shouted.

I slowly began to get myself up. I stood and determined our current situation.

We were trapped inside a unexplored Relic site, rescue wouldn't be coming for hours. We had only the few food and water supplies everyone left behind when they dashed out. With the site gone active, the creatures that made this place their nest should be on full alert or at least should have been woken up by now. We had no map or way to go, and if we waited here for rescue the automaton Stateria that usually patrol these places would eventually find us and terminate us.

"Ugh, Come on! Let me out of here!" Said the girl again pounding the door with her other hand. She must have worn out the other hand.

Note to self: Find the trail of fresh animal corpses. It'll give a sense of which way the Stateria's patrol in. If broken Stateria are found instead, then worry about the animals more and make a will. I might be needing it.

I immediately chastised myself for that "Comon Mathis, don't think that way." I thought to myself "There's still hope. All sites have two ways in or out. There's got to be a way out of here"

The girl infront of me finally stopped pounding the doors, her hands must be sore. After giving it another thought, she continued to beat both hands against the door again in desperation. "Please! I know you can hear me you deadbeats! Open this tin can up!"

I walked up to her. Whatever happened before was past. For all the past 5 minutes, my attention's been on this girl.

(Wow. That sounds really creepy saying that)

It's time I stop being a stranger to her. I walked up to her and talked to her. "Hate to say it but it's no use. They can't hear us. These are blast doors. Not even a Nanoblast could knock this door down, nor would anyone on the other side hear a sound from it."

"So you're saying we're stuck here?" replied the girl.

"Unfortunately" I answered

The girl processed it and took in a deep sigh.

"Why do I put myself in these situations? I should have bailed with Chelsea when I had the chance." She began to look around "At least I'm not alone."

I looked around with her. It seems we were the only two who didn't make it out. The two of us were trapped together

...

Don't go getting any funny ideas Mathis. You've been warned (by yourself)

"Any idea what all the fuss was about?" She asked me.

I snapped from my thoughts, and turned around to her.

"Sorry, No clue. All I noticed was that the site went live and the place started to automatically lock down." I answered

"Same here." Said the girl "My head went fuzzy and it felt like someone was beating my head in with a shovel. Next thing I know you're by my side and the place was empty."

"Oh Geeze…what are we gonna do?" she fretted. "I guess we have more important things to figure out right now. Talk isn't gonna get us outta here. "

The girl looked down on the ground. She had nice red eyes. After a moment of reflection of what just happened, she spoke to me with a far different demeanor.

"And…Um…thank you." She said.

I looked at her

"Thank you for trying to help me. I know it doesn't mean much figuring what I just got you into, but…"

She was assuming the worst. I put my hand on the shoulder to try to comfort her. "Don't worry about it. It'll be ok. We'll find a way out of here." I said. Despite how grim things were for us, if we give up hope we're as good as dead.

The girl asked me a question "And um…how do we do that? The door's sealed."

"I can only think of one way." I said "We gotta go deeper inside. Every one of these relic sites have two exits. Our predecessors, the Ancients made it that way so if they were ever attacked in one they could have a exit to escape from."

That different demeanor disappeared and the other girl I saw popped back. She didn't like my idea.

"Whoa Whoa Whoa, You've got to be kidding me. Don't tell me you're saying we should deeper into this giant deathtrap?" She said. She really didn't like it.

"Pretty much." I said. She looked at me in disbelief.

"You're serious aren't you? Are you crazy? This is a relic site!" She said "Who knows what could be down there. We need to stay here until someone comes for us."

I frowned at that. "That's going to get us killed." I said to her. "Stateria patrol these Relic sites to eliminate intruders they find. If we stay in the same spot we're only ensuring that we run into one."

It was suddenly realizing one plus one equaled two and how stupid you were for not remembering. She seemed like that as she remembered my fact.

"Yea…I guess we can't stay here after all." She said.

"We should get moving as soon as possible." I told her as I took a few steps ahead of her. "Get yourself ready, and we'll depart."

Her response wasn't reassuring. "Umm…ok then…" The girl stopped her sentence in her tracks. Seems like she realized something else.

"I don't think I caught your name before." She said to me.

True. We never did introduce ourselves to each other. Best to do so. I don't think using pronouns the whole time would be fun. Or easy to read.

I turned around to her and extended my hand. "I'm Mathis. Mathis Klein." I said, walking up to her.

She smiled. "Never woulda guessed. I'm Emilia Percival. Nice to meet ya." She, Emilia reached out her hand and we shook hands.

Heh, I wanted to go down into this Relic site with someone. Seems like I'm about to, for a different reason then I started with.

"Like it or not, seems like we're in this together Mathis." Emilia said to me.

"Indeed we are. Let's make the best of it and see tomorrow" I said to her.

"Righto" She said back smiling.

After our hands parted, I asked the next most important question. "So, what equipment did you bring with you?"

Emilia did not give a quick reply.

Her eyes darted away from me, and didn't answer what she brought with her. "Well…"

Oh boy…I know where this is going...

"Well, I brought my staff with me." She said, walking over to a rod on the floor. "I put it down before this all happened."

This isn't good and I wasn't amused. My hand circled, signaling her to go on. "What else?"

"Ummm…." Again, Emilia gave no answer.

"You have your NanoTransmitteer right? You stored some equipment, weapons, items, whatevers inside in it's pocket space, right?" I asked.

Please don't tell that man she was with brought her down here with no means to defend herself…Please…

She reached for her side, going from her pockets searching for something. As I looked down, I noticed lacked what I was hoping she had.

"Oh Great." Emilia moaned. Her hand quickly met her forehead. "HE's still got my Nanotransmitter. I should have took it when I had the chance." My hand immediately met my forehead as well.

Oh god, she didn't have anything at all? This is Melvolvore city all over again. I feel the migraine coming already.

"So the guy you were with has it?" I said to her. "You came in here with nothing at all? Please tell me you at least have a shield liner to protect you, or something aside from your staff."

Seems like Emilia took offense to that one. She pouted and crossed her arms. "It's not like I thought I was going to need it. I wasn't even planning to come in here till' my boss dragged me in here at the last second. And my Shield Liner was malfunctioning and made my clothes feel all weird. I took it off until I could buy another."

I sighed. So the girl has nothing but a staff.

"I'm not gonna wear it all day long and feel weird for no good reason. What type of person would? It's not like I had actually planned on needing it." Emilia continued her defense.

I nodded in agreement.

"Yes, exactly. About time someone finally agrees with me." Emilia complained.

Don't think, just nod Mathis.

"It's not like it would help me here anyway. " She said

My real feelings came up and I came up with my rebuttal to that. "They cover one's body with photons and dulls impacts to keep the body safe. Even the weakest shield liners absorb attacks what would normally be fatal. We're going to need that here."

The thought popped in my head. I stopped in thought for a few seconds, and Emilia turned and waited for me to speak once more. I know this is a bad idea. But…

"Listen" I said to her. I reached behind me, and removed a small rectangle object that emitted a green light.

She needs it more then me. I can take a few hits…I don't think she can.

"Take my Shield liner." I said as I handed it to her. "It's not that good, but it'll keep you safe from attacks."

Emilia seemed thankful. "But, don't you need it?" Emilia asked.

With that I reached into my Nanotransmitter and pulled out a small bracer like shield. It slid neatly into my arm, adjusting till it firmly fit. On its center was a dark green oval gem. As the shield felt my arm its gem came to life and began to lighten.

This was no ordinary bracer or shield. This was my shield, the Aegis.

With the shield neatly in place I turned to Emilia. "With this, I won't be needing one. You take my Shield-Liner for now. If we're lucky we'll find one I can take when we get deeper inside."

After a few minutes, we did depart.

We were lucky. For the most part, this place was deserted. As I looked around I didn't see much. For the first time, I actually took a good look around here. This place was designed to run on it's own, through a power source like most ruins. Unlike others, the usual A (Altered) Photon was not the source.

This Relic Site ran on water, And this place was covered in it. Water drained all through many of the walls, pouring down and being sucked up through see-through pipes. Oddly, the stone path that we walked down did not touch the walls but instead ended just a few feet short of the wall. It created a crevice between the two which the water flows into. Upon the ceiling, half circle skylights, containing nothing but that sucked up water and lights to illuminate the rest of the rooms.

Taking in the scenery, I found this place to be quite beautiful. Well, if not for the feral creatures that made this place their home. I noticed half of one in one of those little skylights before swimming off.

Figuring we're a bunch of intruders, it's best we make this quick.

We walked into the next room. I went first, just to make sure that nothing nasty was inside while Emilia had my back.

I noticed a bunch of small green little reptilian creatures. They had two small hind legs, green scaly skin with a yellow little underbelly. It had ears on both sides, with a fin on the top of it's head.

They were called Badira. A species I'm well accustomed to. I've hunted them hundreds of times, and many of my jobs consisted of rooting these little pests out. They were fast, annoying, and breed like wildfire. Despite being on the bottom of the Parum's food chain these things thrive no matter what the circumstance . It's no wonder they made a home here. There isn't anything to eat them. And worst they aren't a laughing matter. Get a swarm of these things and they make fast work of anything they consider a meal. And they consider everything a meal.

There were four Badira infront of me. They were feasting on some dead animal. I couldn't make out what the half-eaten creature is, but I could tell it was a creature bigger then an average human. I doubt a few Badira could have killed it, and if it was a swarm there wouldn't be anything else of this.

When I noticed the dripping bloodstain and body imprint on the wall, I understood why. A Stateria must have found the creature all alone and killed it. Poor sucker. Hopefully, we get out of here and don't share it's fate.

"Eww, gross" Emilia said to me, finally seeing the display which I had seen.

Immediately after hearing Emilia, the Badira noticed our presence jumped into the crevice and back into the water, leaving the dead corpse behind.

"What…what were they doing?" Said the greenhorn girl.

My answer was simple. "Having lunch. We'll be dinner if we don't hurry." And conversation killing too, I might add.

Emilia said nothing.

We regained ourselves, held our noses to avoid the smell, and we walked past the dead body and moved into the next room.

With our noses clear Emilia spoke.

"You know, I honestly thought that they weren't going to just let us through. Glad to know I was wrong." Emilia commented

"Huh?" I asked.

She answered without a care "Yea, I've been noticing that those creatures here have been avoiding us for a bit now."

I stopped moving. My eyes widened.

Emilia was dumbfounded at my response. I looked at her and asked her a simple question "Emilia… how long have they been following us?"

"Hmmm….about fifteen minutes or so? Why? Is it a problem?" Emilia said.

I didn't respond.

"They're scared of us right?" She asked. "….right?"

...

There was a growl behind us.

"Mathis? What's that growling noise?"

* * *

**Chapter 2 - end**


	3. Chapter 3 - As fast as you can

**Chapter 3**

**

* * *

**

"RUN RUN RUN RUN RUN!"

Emilia and I were running for our lives as a swarm of hungry Badira chased behind us.

So, was this how I was going to die? Eaten by these little anklebiters? Damn it all.

"Hurry!" I yelled "Into the door! We can lock them out!"

Thank the great light the girl can run.

The door ahead of seemed operational. Another small passageway. If we can lock it we can buy us some time. We panted and ran faster. Emilia darted ahead of me, and both of us were getting closer to the door.

Sounds like the perfect time for the heroine to trip doesn't it? She'd trip and get eaten like a bimbo from a slasher flick, or would be the perfect timing for the damsel in distress to be rescued from the evil horde by the dashing hero with amazingly good looks.

Unfortunately, I'm not in the good looking department…

And, that wasn't what happened.

I tripped.

I tripped on a little pebble. I could feel myself tripping, my whole body going down, and the frantic "oh shit" popped in my head as I hit the ground.

"Mathis!" I herd Emilia yell at me. She stopped running and turned back to me.

I had no shield liner. I would be a goner in an instant if the Badira got to me.

If I wanted to survive, I needed a quickie. I reached to my nanotransmitter and grabbed said quickie. I grabbed a simple orb like object and pressed a quick button on it and rolled it towards the approaching swarm.

I pulled myself up and continued running. The Badira ran towards me, their yellow eyes bright as ever as they ran with hunger in their stomachs and saliva from their mouths. They didn't realize that I just slid a trap bomb at them.

"Keep going! Get the door! " I yelled at Emilia.

Before the Badira could pass by it, the trap activated and exploded. Wind blew past me, but did not make me waver.

Unlike a normal explosion, there was no fire. There was ice instead. A monument of ice exploded in the trap's place, freeze everything around it. Including the Badira that was leading the charge.

As the Badira passed their fallen leader, they stopped and turned around to see him. Some of the smaller, youthful Badira continued to make their way towards me, but most of the swarm paid their attention to the leader.

See, this is the best thing about Badira. All Badira packs have Alpha males. They are not the strongest, they are the oldest.

The pack always follows the lead of the Alpha male.

Threaten the leader and pack always go to its leader's aid, in this case it'll be a few moments before the Badira break their leader free, and that's all the time I need.

On my feet, I made it to the door where Emilia stood. She was trying to get the console next to the door to work. She had a little visor over her eyes, and a little virtual pad infront of her.

"Get in!" She said to me.

I did immediately, and right as I passed through the door it creeked and slammed shut behind me.

"GOT IT!" Emilia shouted in joy.

We trapped ourselves in a small L-shaped shaft connecting one room to another, but it was fine with us. The Badira had no way to get inside. We were safe, for now at least.

With danger past we let our breaths out. Emilia took a seat on the floor and just like her staff she leaned her against the way. Both of us were covered in sweat, tired and taking full use of our improv saferoom. The visor over Emilia's eyes closed up and faded away as she rested against the wall.

"Oh…oh…thank the great light." Emilia said with pants breaking up her words. "I thought we were goners there."

"That's why" I panted "I always buy freeze traps…."

They save lives, wouldn't the first, wouldn't be the last.

I reached into my nanotransmitter and took a container of water out.

"Want some water?" I asked.

"Very much" Emilia said, eagerly taking the water and gulping it once she got her hands on it. We had plenty, so I didn't worry about how much we had. We spent two more containers, and we had a snack too.

Two sandwiches I had ready for eating. Karvolta roast beef.

"Homemade? Oh this is good." Emilia said as she chowed down on the food. "It's been a while since I had someone else's cooking"

"Thanks, it's…." I said cutting myself off. "It's well appreciated. Thank you."

Mom's cooking is always the best

Not that I was going to admit that…nope…never…not in a million years.

Instead we began chatting to eachother.

"So, you know the old language?" I asked

"Enough to access it." Emilia said with a smile on her face as she took another bite out of my mom's sandwich. "Translation programs and a hacking program did the rest, I pretty much told it what to do."

She's smarter then she looks. And speaking of looks, she does look kinda cute with some crumbs on her mouth.

"Never really tried to do any more then-"

A banging on the door rattled us.

"Ah!" Emilia dropped her sandwich in shock, but saved the sandwich just before it hit the ground.

"Those things aren't going to give up till we're dead aren't they." She said.

"That or until they find a easier meal." I said.

More banging on the door. Seems like they were trying to break it down, or budge it open or something. The door wasn't a blast door or a weak door, it was strong enough to hold for a while.

They continued to bash themselves against the wall. She really didn't like this sound, I couldn't blame her. For someone with no experience in these matters, this would get under my skin fast too. Pretty much did the first few times I had to deal with a bunch of these things.

"I…I really think we should keep on moving. The distance between them and us the better" She asked.

I couldn't agree more.

We got up, got ready. I slide another trap bomb into my pocket, and we put my food away.

Another loud bang bashed itself against the door.

"Persistent buggers" I said.

Those damned Badira seemed not to like my comment. More banged themselves against the door. I took my time and placed a three traps down on the ground as we got closer to the other end of this corridor. If they broke that door down, they'd have a nasty surprise waiting for them.

Meanwhile Emilia walked up to the console on the door that didn't have the raving horde on the other side.

"I'll get the door" Emilia said. "This door's locked, but I can override it and unlock it."

"The faster the better" I said back

"Righto" Said Emilia as she began working her magic.

Things went smoothly, Emilia worked on the door, my traps were activated, and the Badira continued to bash against the door. The door finally began to show signs of denting.

When Emilia took a peek at the damage, she was a little freaked out from it all. "We're…safe right?" she asked.

I turned to her "You want the honest answer or the assuring one?" I asked back.

"Honest" Emilia said with a gulp.

"It'll hold for few minutes." I said "We'll have to get moving soon though. If a Go-Badira's in the area though then we'll need a plan B to stop these things."

"What's a Go-Badira?" She asked me

"You've really never been to Parum before have you?" I asked.

"Always more of a Moatoob person" Emilia answered.

Figures.

"The Go-Badira are the Badira's sister species." I started "They're a bit bigger, a purple color and they have what looks like a sharp dorsal fin they use to ram things. Despite being about as strong as regular Badira, they usually hijack Badira packs. The regular Badira have a suicidal devotion to the Go-Badira, and always follow it's orders, mostly because of one thing they realize, and the reason why they're very dangerous."

"Why's that?"

The door infront of us opened. Not Emilia's door. The other one. A swarm of Badira stood right infront of us. A Go-Badira stood a few steps from the door, it's fin touching the top of the panel like the one on our side of the door.

"….They're smart."

The Go-Badira knew it was futile to break down the door. That's why it went to the console to hit the button to switch the door open.

I can barely read the open and close buttons in here for the damn life of me.

That little reptilian just opened the door without a fuss.

…

Clever girl.

"Our door's open." Emilia said to me, unknowing of what just happened, she only saw me motionless. "Mathis? Hey Mathis?" Emilia peeked her head over to see what the matter was. "What's the…..oohh no."

Now Emilia saw it too.

We looked at eachother, and then we exchanged a glance with the swarm. As Dinner and Devourers.

"We make a run for it, close the next door" I said lightly to Emilia, as I reached inside my nanotransmitter

As the Badira took off after us, We ran.

"Go!" I yelled. Emilia took off. She ran as fast as she could to the other end of our corridor and began working on the door. I pulled a red and white orb out of my nanotransmitter. It floated next to me and came right to my the palm of my hand.

The orb was colored red with a white faceplate. A small visible green energy trail of photons surrounded the three rudders that helped maneuver the thing.

This was called a Tech-mag. They assist the user to manipulate the photons in the air to produce unnatural and supernatural phenomena we called Technics. In layman's terms, they help people cast magic.

And it was time to cast some magic.

"DIGA!" I shouted as the Tech-mag glowed a shade of brown and responded to my will. Within a second photons clumped together and shot forward taking the shape of a small boulder.

The boulder slammed into the incoming horde and slowed down their advance, knocking the leading chargers down as the rest pursued us. I continued casting the technic over and over, throwing more boulders as I headed towards the door.

When in doubt, Diga it out. Ask anyone who can use a technic. They'll tell you the same thing.

"Is the door ready!" I yelled out to Emilia

"Yes, get in!" She shouted.

I cast and shot out one last Diga Technic before making a dive crossing over to the other side of the door. And once again the door closed right behind me right, blocking out the raving hordes once more.

We both gave out a sigh of relief. We were safe for the moment, again. I'd say we had less then a minute before they opened the door. But that would be enough just for me. I put away my tech-mag and pulled a little switch from my nanotransmitter. A detonator to be exact. One to the traps that I had planted earlier in the room. They were about to get a nasty surprise.

"Get to the next door and get ready to lock it. I got this." I said to her, walking up to her and showing off the detonator.

Emilia immediately recognized what I had. "Ooooh. I like that plan" She said, admiring the first phase of my plan. "Send those little monsters to hell for me ok?"

"Of course I will" I said smiling.

Emilia ran down the halls off to the next door.

I cleared the blast range, gave a little smile, and spoke.

"Ka-boom" I said with my finger pressing the button

What can I say, I was always one for the dramatics.

I pushed the button, setting off the traps and blasting the corridor I was just in into a world of fire.

The door that we had closed blasted off it's rails and slammed into the other side of the wall. Flames exploded from the corridor Emilia and I were just in. Small little bits of Badira flesh blasted out of the corridor, leaving nothing unscathed.

After being chased by these damned Badira for the past 20 minutes, this was very…very satisfying.

The flames subsided after a minute, and nothing came out.

Maybe I got them all? No, probably not. If a Go-Badira was with them, then it probably only sent a few, or smelt the explosives from my trap bombs and took cover.

As if I was right on cue, the Go-Badira emerged with three burnt companions.

Blast.

I thought I might have gotten the damned thing.

"MATHIS!" I her Emilia shout. "OVER HERE!" She yelled.

"Is the door ready?" I shouted back.

"I found something better! Get over here right now!" She said.

I turned and ran. Just in time too, as what was left of the swarm came out of the destroyed corridor and came my way. I definitely had thinned the horde. Now we just needed to finish off the Go-badira and the rest of those reptilian rodents.

My mind flashed as what to pull out. I had my shotgun, A great sword, a photon claw, my mags, plasma pistols, beam saber, and of course the Aegis which I was already wearing.

With what Emilia did next, none of that was needed.

I caught up to her. All I could see was her looking behind me with a grin on her face.

"Payback time!" She said as she hit a switch on her little virtual pad.

I herd death cries behind me, and I turned around to see a massacre.

Laser fences with purple beams of high powered photons streamed across the walkway I had just ran behind, and which the badira were in right now.

Most had skewered themselves against the laser fences, slicing and dicing themselves up.

Including the Go-Badira.

"Alright!" She said raising her hands in glee. "I'd say that solves our problem" She said gleefully.

There were few badira left. A few stragglers didn't skewer themselves against the fence, which included the former alpha male that the Go-badira had stolen the spotlight from.

Standing in the middle of the fences, it and the other leftovers made a couple of fearsome growls at us for skewering the horde. They then turned around and dived off the sides of the walkway, landing back in the water below. It would be a while before they could regroup, and for all we know they may consider us too dangerous to attack anymore.

"That…was really good." I said.

Between one set of bombs and one set of laser fences, we virtually annulated an entire horde of Badira. Damn…awesome.

"Well, I was thinking about before, and I decided to take a look before I let that hacking program get the door." Emilia said "Turns out this room had some security measures. So I turned on the security systems and it looks like it worked quite well."

"Yea, definitely did." I said with a little chuckle.

I think I've begun to see why that man brought her along. From our encounter with that raving horde, Emilia was definitely good with technology. I'm guessing the man she was with wasn't. For navigating through a relic site, having someone who could manipulate the technology of the ancients would definitely be worth brining along here, even if she wasn't that good in battle.

"We better get a move on before those things regroup." I said.

"Seriously?" Emilia said.

"Unfortunately." I said, walking up to the next door to open. "They'll come back with a vengeance eventually. No clue how long it'll take, but I really don't want to find out."

…..

Why do I feel worried? I think my natural senses are kicking in.

And then we found my reason. The moment we opened the next door, we saw tall green reptilian creatures. They had snouts, with a black pointy nose. It had three red eyes and quite sharp fangs. Like the Badira they had a dorsal fin. Unlike them, they stood on two legs. It had two blades on the southern side of the arms, definitely meant for skewering.

And there was seven of them.

And me, without any defenses.

Emilia backed up and fretted. "Ah! It's a Evil shark!"

"A what?" I said backing up. I drew my great sword and held it, ready for what was next.

"They're mutated lifeform that's been appearing in the solar system since the SEED crisis. They're some sort of altered beasts." Emilia said.

Altered Beasts? Who would name them that?

"Aw Crap" I said. "And they're coming this way. Get that staff of yours ready Emilia."

She did draw it…but was staggering. "um…um…ma-mathis…you see…"

We didn't have time for this. "What…can't it wait?" The seven evil sharks had come out of the room. We were between a laser fence with a former horde of Badira past it on one side, and seven of these creatures on the other side. And we were stuck in the middle.

"You…you See, I may be armed, but I haven't actually been in all that many fights"

"Anything's good." I said "At this point anything is good."

"….uh…none to be exact."

I froze.

Oh god I'm gonna die here.

I take back everything good I said about her before.

The Evil Sharks advanced more, and we backed ourselves against the fences. They continued advancing. I had a dead weight that had my shield liner, and I'm not sure if I can defend both of us against seven at once and not get hit. Especially when they're getting ready to pounce.

My breath got heavy. My forehead began to sweat. My grip tightened.

If I was going to go down, I wasn't going to go without a fight.

The Evil Sharks pounced, and the unlikey happened.

They jumped.

Not at us, but over us.

They jumped over our heads and over the fence, and landed where the freshly dead badira were.

Both of us turned and looked at them, all seven Evil Sharks taking their pick of the dead Badira and began to chow down upon them.

We gave a sigh of relief.

"Oh thank god…" I said.

We looked at eachother. And it was my turn to pounce.

"Why didn't you didn't tell me you couldn't fight!" I said, halfway angry, halfway relieved.

"I'm sorry…you were so cool before. I…uh…wasn't thinking about, you know?"

"Oh geeze. Oh well." Better not dwindle on bad thoughts. "Emilia, Do you know anything to defend yourself?"

Emilia thought and spoke "Some technics? I know that mass produced zonde one."

"Eh. Good enou-"

"Rawr!"

The evil sharks seemed not to enough their dinner show.

They turned to us and barked at us. We fell silent, watching them to see what their next move is.

Luckily, once we fell silent again they went back to feasting on the slaughtered Badira.

Emilia spoke first. "If I could speak Evil Shark, I think they told us to shut u-."

"Rawr Rawr!" cried the evil sharks once again.

Yea…It's time to go.

I pointed at Emilia, then I pointed at me, and then I pointed to the door which the sharks came through..

She gave a thumbs up and so did I with a voiceless "ok".

And we got the heck out of there.

* * *

-

**Chapter 3 end**

Author's notes- That horde just didn't want to die did it? I didn't exactly expect them to go on and eat up a whole chapter. I had planned them just to have a bit part and then have the rest of this chapter focus on the dungeon crawl. As fun as that would be in game, in text it's not so much.

Next chapter should finish up the seabed.

As for working with Emilia's "talents", I wanted to slowly alter her character a tiny bit from canon. For those who have beaten the game then you know her spoilers.

I always felt it kinda comes out of nowhere, and feels too much of an asspull way too late in the game. I didn't exactly like it and I decided I should ease into the spoiler, by at least establishing she's a technological genius and good with machines. Also helps with the whole "Emilia and Shu are counterparts" thing.

Honestly, Emilia strikes me as the type who does everything to avoid work the when it's actually much easier and less work just to do the original work.

That type of person.

Hope you enjoyed this chapter. See you next chapter!


	4. Chapter 4 - Sharks Staffs Strife

**Chapter 4**

**

* * *

**

"I think we're far enough away now" I said.

We made some distance from our encounter with those Evil Sharks. We took a seat on a few containers and took a few moments to rest.

"Emilia, you really don't have any experience in the field before?" I asked her

"Umm, yea, something like that. Only thing I did was try a VR training course once" She answered. "And I do know a bit of photon magic but it's just that zonde one. I'm…not that good at it though. But aside from those I really don't know anything."

I gotta judge this girl. "Can you show me that Zonde technic? Try blasting that box over there." I said pointing at a random container inside the relic site.

"What? Well, I guess so" questioned Emilia. She quickly decided to do so.

Emilia put her staff away around her back and focused her hand out. She closed her eyes and channeled the Technic. After a few seconds sparks of electricity gathered around Emilia's open hand.

"Zonde!" She said

A small spark of electricity shot out from her hand. A very bright but small stream of electricity sparked out of her hand and struck the container almost instantaneously. It should have broken the box, but barely left a black mark on the super fragile container.

"Yea, as expected. I'm not really good with magic. I can't even do it like everyone else can." She said.

Emilia was right. The girl might have been taught the technic, but had no clue how to actually do it right. The mass produced technic called Zonde shoots out a ball of lighting and electricity to shock the target. It usually blasts through things, passing the shock and force of the attack onto anything behind it.

Emilia's…was different.

Technic disks can be used to teach people how to use Technics, but only through the proper casting materials such as the staff that Emilia is holding or my Tech-mag. They sync with the user and amplify the technic to make them quite powerful. To do it without a casting tool, the technic is much weaker and is far harder to do. The only people who can really make any useful use of technics without weapons are mostly the members of the Communion of Gurhal, Technic masters and professionals, and people who spend way too much time to learn them. Figuring you can spend a couple hundred Meseta and perform a Technic as well as someone who's dedicated years to learning the same thing, you can see why people choose the former more often.

In all truth, I was kinda impressed that she could do that without anything to assist her.

Though, it also proved she knew nothing about spellcasting in the first place.

"So, is that how you do technics?" I asked.

"Yea," Emilia replied. "Someone told me how to use Technics it in four simple steps."

With that, Emila told them to me. And I quote…

"1) Concentrate your mind  
2) Focus the photons in your body  
3) Aim at someone you don't like  
4) Then unleash your annihilation of photons!"

"Or something like that." Emilia shrugged, her explanation finished. "Been working for me sofar."

"I see. So you at least kinda have that down…" I rubbed my chin in thought. "And the staff?" I asked her.

"What about the staff?" Every time I use it the photons just blow up in my face. Thing  
makes a nice wacking tool though." Emilia said

That doesn't sound right. Well, except for the wacking part.

"Here, let me see." I said.

"Sure thing. You know what's wrong with it?" Emilia asked as she gave me her staff.

It was made of a fine material. Hard as diamond, yet light to hold. It was pure white with a red line going down the backside of the staff, at the top of the staff came an intersection of four small slivers that spread backwards symmetrically with the staff. The spokes hid the red adapter behind them

This staff was definitely not one of the generically mass produced staves or wands that are sold in the Gurhal system by the big three manufactures (GRM, Yohmei, and Tenora). I'd love to find out where she got this rare weapon but right now was not the time nor the place. If I couldn't fix this thing, it'd be a waste of...

oh...On a first look, this problem was easier done then said.

I almost laughed.…It's funny actually. One of those simple things that enrage you until you realize how simple it was. Makes sense why the thing wasn't working.

I explained to Emilia what was wrong. "You never set that staff of yours to even use technics. You have the adapter placed on the staff to let it channel photons but it's never been set to do so or turned on. That's why it's not working right and the pure photon energy you're gathering is just blowing up in your face."

I'm not even a spellcaster and even I know this stuff. Thank you school.

With the right change on the adapter, Emilia's "broken" staff should be "fixed".

"There." I said "I changed the setting and the thing should be working now. "

I gave Emilia back the elegant white staff.

"Now try the same thing again, but through your staff." I asked.

"Huh? You want me to try again?" Emilia asked me

"Yea." I said "Try and cast the spell again, but instead of focusing it through your hand, focus it through the staff. Shoot it off through the front of the staff. Try it"

"Oook…Well, here goes nothing." Emilia said.

This time she raised her staff, and pointed it at her target, the simple container. Photons gathered at her staff's tip and turned yellow.

"Zonde!"

A pure ball of electricity shot out from the tip of her staff. A ball of lighting sped and struck the unlucky container. The container exploded, and the thunder ball blasted through it and struck the wall.

Emilia was ecstatic and just short of jumping for joy. "I don't believe it! It worked! It actually worked!"

Maybe mom was right. Maybe I should become a teacher instead of a mercenary.

"Alright. Perfect. It should be working now. When we run into some more enemies, remember to blast them just like that. Just don't overdo it, you'll tire yourself out." I advised. "From experience I can tell you that if you overdo it you'll be very sor-"

It was at that time we herd a battlecry of another monster

"Mathis! Look out!" I herd Emilia yell to me.

Turning to the left of me, I saw a red Evil Shark coming my way with it's bladed limbs ready to dice me.

I only had a moment to spare before I was skewered by the red monster. Time to use the Aegis.

I raised my right arm and bent it towards me.

"AEGIS! ACTIVATE!" I yelled as my shield came to life. The green oval gem on the Aegis lit up and glew a bright green as four little slivers unfolded itself and spread out.

The Red Evil shark slashed down at me. Instead of hitting me, the bladed arms hit a barrier of light inches from my arm and stopped the Red Evil Shark's attack dead on. The force of the blow wasn't enough to push me back, and me and the monster were deadlocked.

"Emilia!" I shouted to my ally. "Shoot her!" I yelled." Shoot her!"

Emilia staggered as she took aim.

"Take aim and blast this thing!" I instructed again. Let's see her put this staff to good use…and please let it be soon.

I pushed foreword and shoved the Shark back.

"Zonde!" Emilia shouted as a ball of lighting struck the side of the Shark, following it with two more blasts that knocked it off it's feet and sent the fierce bipedal beast down for the count.

Emilia was holding the staff as I turned to her. She wasn't out of breath. Good sign

"How was that?" She asked.

"Perfect" I said.

"Every time we stop something bad happens to us." Emilia lampshaded. "Geeze"

"Yea. I suppose we should just keep on going further" I said walked ahead to the next door, glancing at the Red Evil Shark.

"Why did it just come out of nowhere? And why the heck is the thing red? Did we piss it off or something?" Honestly, this was kinda confusing.

We started walking towards the door. Like I said before, it's best we don't stop unless we're in a safe area. And with the out of the blue attack, this wasn't a safe area.

"The red ones are Pal sharks" Emilia answered "They're the aggressive breed of Evil Sharks. The Evil Sharks don't really attack anything unless they're hungry. Pal Sharks on the other hand are very violent and pretty much attack anything that's not one of them."

"So let me get this straight. The Evil ones are friendly, while the Pal ones are violent? I said, stopping my tracks. "Who the hell comes up with these names? Stupid mutant shark creatur-"

"Mathis! Look out!" Emilia yelled at me. But I didn't hear those words.

Instead, I felt something carve into my back. Something sharp slashed through my clothes and sent me down to the ground facefirst.

"Mathis!" I herd Emilia yell in horror. "Crap crap crap crap…"

Once I hit the ground, my hearing returned to me.

I herd the sounds of electricity and what felt the photons being used. I herd the cries of monsters being hit with them too, instead of diving towards me and killing me I assume.

This is bad…. We're under attack again. I need to get back up.

"Mathis!" Emilia shouted. "Get back up!"

I know I know Emilia.

My mother's blood and adrenaline pumped through my veins and gave me back full control of my body. I pushed myself up to all fours, and I confirmed what I had assumed earlier. Emilia had saved my ass with those Zonde technics.

I reached for my nanotransmitter and pulled out my photon pistol and turned around to face the threat.

When I did there were four of those red Pal Sharks. One was pretty much inches away from me, with it's blades tinted with my blood. It was covered in burn marks. I recognized this one, this was the one that attacked me earlier. Seems like Emilia didn't kill it after all. The bastard got back up and came back after me and got a cheap shot in.

Like hell I was gonna let this pass. I was gonna made sure it was the first to die. I unloaded my shots into my attacker, blasting it over and over with my handgun until the creature stopped moving and fell over backwards.

As it fell down another shark jumped over one of Emilia's zondes and reared it's blades straight for me. I rolled to my side to dodge the attack and I jumped right up on my feet. As Emilia prepared to fire another Zonde, the shark raised it's arms to attack her. I darted to them reaching my Aegis shield on my right hand between them.

The shield activated and when the Shark slashed with it's arms. The Aegis blocked the attack perfectly and knocked the Pal Shark off balance.

Emilia too flinched when I put my hand infront of her face, and I wouldn't blame her too. A giant mutant Pal Shark plus an ancient shield in your face is would throw you off balance too.

I took a step infront of Emilia and got ready to finish off the second of these evil Pal Sharks. The Pal shark regained its balance and was ready to take me head on.

Pity it never noticed my left hand. In it I held my pistol as it was absorbing photons and reading for one big shot.

It only noticed it as I raised the charged photon pistol to what it liked to call it's face.

Emilia immediately took a step back as I released the charge and blew what it liked to call it's face clean off.

With a hole where it's face was, the corpse fell to the ground.

I began to feel a bit light, but I wouldn't let myself crash. I was running off adrenaline and my mother's blood, and I wouldn't go down before I was done here. After all, we had a few sharks left, and despite that gash on my back I personally wanted to finish these things off.

"I take one…you take the other…" I panted to Emilia

"Wait, how am I suppose to do that?" She said, which I quickly ignored.

I put my pistol away in my nanotransmitter and pulled out my claw. It fit perfectly alongside the Aegis. Just by feeling the photons in the air the weapon came to life, three claws of photon energy sprouted from the handle on the back of my hand.

With the remaining sharks left, I rushed at them and they rushed at me.

I shifted left and made my way to the Shark on the left. It tried to swing the closest arm blade at me and I parried the blow with my claw. Our backs were almost to eachother. I spun around and slashed the Pal Shark and sent it down.

After, my claw disappeared and in its place I took out my Yohmei brand shotgun to finish the job. I pulled the butt of the gun into my shoulder and took aim down my sights at the downed shark and opened fire. It was dead before it hit the floor.

I pumped the gun, the shotgun filling itself back up with photons to fire out once more. Which I did to ensure that the creature was definitely dead.

Granted, I didn't need it but it was a force of habit. A good one in my opinion.

The white tube of photons shined on my shotgun as I pumped it again and recharged the weapon.

I turned to Emilia and saw her progress. She didn't have as much luck as I did.

I saw her get slashed by a chargrilled Pal Shark, with the strike knocking her down on her rear. Thanks to the shield liner, that fatal slash would meet a barrier of photon instead of her flesh, and she would just get knocked backwards from the force of the strike instead of dying.

The shark slashed with it's claws again and Emilia raised her staff to block. Both were deadlocked.

I should have thought twice before I thought of my plan. Emilia's got no clue how to fight and these things are really aggressive. I'll apologize to her when we're done Regardless, it's time to give Emilia some help.

The shark never saw me coming.

I got up behind the shark, took aim with my shotgun and fired a few holes of photons through the Pal Shark. Emilia backed up on the ground and gave the creature enough time to collapse just behind her.

"Thanks" Emilia said. I reached out my hand and I pulled her up. With the danger past, I began to feel more heavyheaded and my balance was going.

"Mathis…" Emilia said, looking at me. "You don't look so…LOOK OUT!"

I couldn't finish hearing the rest of her sentence. I didn't need to hear that warning.

I turned around and reached out my hand.

It was the same damned Pal Shark that Emilia electrocuted, that put a big gash in my back, that I personally shot a bunch of holes through. But still that bastard wasn't dead.

But it wasn't getting the upper hand this time.

I reached out my hand and grabbed the forearm of the Pal Shark. I stopped it's bladed arm right as it was raised up in the air. It struggled to bring it down and kill me, but I would not allow that.

I was stronger then this thing. And now it knew it that too. But it still would not give up. We exchanged glances. I stared down this six eyed creature, it's mouth foaming and ready to snap at me. It wanted to eat my face, and I was gonna give it exactly that.

I cocked my head back, I rammed my face right into the middle of the Pal Shark's face, straight into triangle black nose beak.

The Pal Shark was disorientated from the headbut, and I took that time to give him a real meal. I reached into my nanotrasnmitter and pulled out one of my trap bombs.

"You want something to eat!" I yelled at it.

"EAT THIS!" I shoved my trap bomb into it's mouth. The Pal Shark took a moment to attempt to process what I had just shoved back into its mouth.

I turned the two of us towards the sides of the area and the watery pits that surrounded us.

The Rabid monster was barely able to resist me as I took another opportunity to vent my anger and smashed it with two more headbutts. I let my grip go as the creature staggered back towards the edge.

My photon claw materialized back into my hand. As the south parumians put it, It was time for the Coup de grace.

Photons began to swell around me, I felt a surge of energy go through me.

"Photon art!" I shouted (dramatically) at the creature

My claw shined with the photons, the reactor of the weapon going into overdrive.

"Shousen Totsuzan-ga!" I slashed at the Pal Shark with a clawed uppercut, the energy collected burst out from my claw in one solid blow, blasting upward like a portable tornado. The Pal Shark had no chance to dodge, evade, or block it, and was swept up from my bladed uppercut and launched it into the air. It flew backwards, and hit the wall of the room, before falling down into the pit below.

I turned around to see Emilia stare at me in disbelief and awe. She watched as the bomb I had shoved in the Pal Shark's mouth exploded, a firey explosion erupted from the chasm I had just sent it down, with me standing behind it.

If that shark wasn't dead before. It was now.

"And that's…how it's done…." I said panting, my body's adrenaline residing.

"Holy crap… you really are a mercenary." I saw her say. Seems my flashy finisher took her away. I suppose I alwa….

Ooh I felt wooszy…my head began to spin like a nightmare…oh I shouldn't have headbutted that thing…I think I lost too much blood back there…I felt my consciousness fading fast and no time to do anything about it.

My body gave out, I fell to my knees, and crashed down on the ground…

I herd one last thing before I completely passed out.

"Scape doll activating…"

* * *

**Chapter 4 end**

And once again the chapter ends with something bad happening to Mathis. At this rate, he's gonna wind up dead by the time this day is done.

...

...

lol

Anyway, for everyone who's responded, thank you very much. And for everyone who hasn't I hope to hear from you on what you think of this story.

Many twists and turns await for both readers who've never played Phantasy Star Portable 2 and something new for everyone who has. And who knows, I might fill a plot hole or something along the way.

Anyway, it's time for this chapter to come to it's end, with Mathis down for the count and an greenhorn girl his only chance for survival, it's up to her to keep Mathis alive in this dangerous place. Let's hope that Scape Doll does it's job and bring Mathis back before something really bad happens.

Will our heroes ever find their way out of here?  
Will Mathis ever catch a break?  
Why am I saying this like a Shonen or old cartoon?

Find out in the next thrilling installment of Dragon Ball Z-I-mean- Phantasy Star Portable 2!


	5. Chapter 5 - The Decent

Dear lord...it's been nearly 2 years.  
Wow.

Well, I can tell you this, I'm back, and so is this story, after all this wait. And honestly, it has helped me mold this story to be better (yet, I still can't come up with a good name for the fic. Shattered wings, maybe, but probably not)

I've been using Open Office instead of MS Word my previous chapters (limitations, and moving to a laptop), and it's messed a bit with the formatting, including a double space when I wasn't planning on it.  
My response? Eh, and run with it and see how you like it.

Also, I'll be going back and updating the previous chapters as well. I should be upgrading it into a X-over crossover next update or so. This story does take place in a greater multi-verse (as does "Another take on the eastern story"), and other verses have made an impact into this Gurhal, but it's not really the focus of the story but they are there. So I'm just fidgeting if it qualifies or not. *shrugs*

I suppose I ought to not talk, and get to the good stuff. I really do like this chapter, I love the interactions between these two. Quite the pair...

Here we go, their decent to the boss room awaits!

* * *

**Chapter 5 – The Decent**

"Revival Stimulants activating..."

My eyes blasted open.

"Blood plasma transfer complete. Skin repair complete. Internal repair complete. Replenishing fluids depleted. Revival Stimulants depleted. Scape doll resources depleted. Scape doll no longer operational. Scape Doll revival system shutting down…"

I herd an electronic system turn shut down.

My mind returned to me. My senses returned too.

I felt something on me. I felt cold metal on my back and around the back of my head. I only had a moment of the sensation of it on me, I felt the coldness was retreating. I had no fear, as I knew exactly what this was

It was my scape doll deactivating and going back into my nanotransmitter. Scape Dolls are one of the most important things to bring on a mission. Anytime a person is knocked out or suffers a really nasty blow, the scape dolls activates and gets to work fixing one's wounds. They always prove to be a nice medic-in-a-box, or at least keeps one alive long enough to see a real doctor. Pity they're really only one use only machines, but I'd rather have something then nothing. And that was the only one I had. I have to be even more careful now. One more hit like that and I'm done for.

With that out of the way, I took a look at my surroundings, this wasn't were I was before. I was inside another small passageway, it was identical to the room that Emilia and I ate my lunch in.

Where am I?

"Oh god…I'm going to have nightmares about this…I just know I am…" I herd a girl's voice say.

Oh wait…that was Emilia's voice. I turned to it's direction and I saw a container box with Emilia's backside leaning against it with her arms laying on the floor. I could see her staff by her side, a beamsaber hilt, and one of my waterbottles in the other. Weirdest, was that I saw a bright gold line on her hands.

"Em...milia?" I asked.

"Huh?" Emilia asked herself. She grabbed the saber hilt and make a turn around and we saw eachother. The moment she saw me her eyes lit up. I could see more of the gold lines. This time, they were all over her face in straight lines.

"You're awake!" She exclaimed. "Oh thank the Great Light!" Her body went limp over the box, resting more on it.

I looked down and felt my forehead. I really had no clue what that was at all. Emilia seems human and not a CAST, maybe she has some biological implants system. I know the technology is being worked on to sync man and CAST together…

"Emilia…" I said, this time more coherent, but more confused as I looked at the girl's face again.

This time though, the weird lines were all gone. It was as if they were never there in the first place. Emilia at least didn't notice. That headbutt before must have been a very bad idea, I must be seeing things now.

Regardless, I ignored the weirdness and I moved on. If that was a hallucination, no big deal. If it wasn't then whatever it is will eventually blow up in my face no matter what I do. Usually that's always how it happens to me.

"Emilia…what happened?" I asked her.

"You passed out from losing too much blood. I dragged you into here after you passed out…" She said. "Followed by me locking down the room till the scape revived you."

"Thank you, I appreciate it." I said.

Emilia sighed as she leaned down and picked up her waterbottle "First thank you in a long time," Emilia mutter under her own breath.

"By the way, I've been meaning to ask you something." Emilia blunted asked "The data from your scape doll gave out said that your blood type is a beast blood type. You don't look like one though, you're really a beast?"

"Not exactly." I answered.

"That's not exactly an answer to the question." She said back.

It was a little more complicated then just a yes or now. I was part human, the original species of Gurhal, and part Beast, a subspecies genetically engineered to live in the harsh conditions of planet Moatoob. My father was a full blooded human, while my mother was half beast and half human.

On the subject, There's a third race as well, the other generically engineered race called Newmans. They round out the trio of human species being more fragile types but better with control over photons and technics.

Oh, and the Androids CASTs too, can't forget about them. They're people too after all. CASTs are the race that pretty much run all of my home planet Parum too.

"I'm three fourths human and a quarter beast" I said to her. "My dad was a human and my mom is half-beast half-human."

Emilia just nodded with an "Ahhh."

I love the younger generations, they don't really care about that stuff anymor-

…Or instead of thinking about all this I ask about her about the gold lines.

"Back to you, I was wond-…" I began to say before I was intruptted by a loud slam on a wall.

The waterbottle dropped and Emilia's face went from halfway decent to full panic. "Oh shit," she said turning around "Why won't that thing die…" What composure Emilia had was gone now. As well as my chance to ask her the big question.

I got up off my butt and onto my feet almost immediately. I drew a pistol on instinct, then I switched to my trusty shotgun.

"What thing?" I asked, walking over to Emilia.

"A Stateria." Emilia said, going over some very bad memories. "We weren't the only things in here…" Emilia was about to go on, but as I passed by her and went to the door, I saw immediately what she meant.

Three fried giant machines lay on the ground near a dented door. They looked like the cross of a four legged tank crossed with a horned beetle. The Multilayered armor was shades of gray, aside from the long curved horn of the Stateria, which was covered in fresh blood. Beneath the body of the giant armored walking tank was the A-photon core of the machine, giving it a neigh unlimited power source. Unlimited because that machine was probably at least a few millennia old. Of course, that's what they should look like. These were almost destroyed beyond recognition

Emilia thrashed three of them all by herself. They weren't just deactivated, they were torn up and beaten. On two of them I could see parts of the armor scattered across the floor, torn apart to shreads. The last one, the one closest to me had a hole in it's head to boot.

And Emilia did this? I thought she said she couldn't fight.

"I had to fight and kill those things…they all rushed me at once…" Emilia said recalling the bad memories

"And how in the world did you beat these things?" I asked Emilia

"Well" Emilia began to answer "…I felt a voice in my head telling me to fight and not be afraid, so I did. I focused all my photons and shot a bunch of super zondes which tore them to pieces. And the last Stateria was knocked out of the room by my zondes, so I went and locked him out instead."

"Seems like you took that pretty well." I complimented

Or not.

"Hell no! I was scared shitless. I…I really thought I was going to die." Emilia told me "If it wasn't for that voice in my head I probably would have been."

Oooh that's not a good sign. I looked at Emilia I saw the regret of her mentioning that... Hearing voices is the first sign of going crazy.

"You herd voices…" I said deadpanned.

Emilia seemed a bit worried too. "Yea, I just like I said. When they had me backed against a corner I herd some voice told me not to be afraid and fight with all my might. So I took the advice and somehow managed to wi-."

We herd another wham against the door. I saw part of a horn break through the door behind us.

"Aahh!" Emilia shouted with a step back. With the door compromised, the horn was wiggling left and right to force the doors open.

Emilia seems normal enough right now, I can worry about her sanity later. The Stateria that was invading had to go.

I took aim with my shotgun. "Clear the door." I said flatly

"Roger." Emilia answered meekly. She popped behind me and took cover.

I unloaded a blast of my photon shotgun at the horn that was trying to force the door open.

With the photons depleted from the shot, I pumped my shotgun and drew in more photons. I took aim and fired again, this time making a dent in the horn. As I did the horn began to spray a white gas.

This was used as to distract and lure the SEED. The gas is made with A-photon particles, which is practically SEED bait. By luring the SEED-Forms to the cloud this Stateria could use its primary cannon weapon and blast them to kingdom come. Only the smarter SEED-forms would know better then to fall for this.

Plus, it's actually a pretty good smokescreen.

I opt that it's using this for the later. As the white gas covered the door, the horn slipped back into the cloud.

If this thing rushes me I'll need something to impale it with. I did a quick check through my nanotrasnmitter and noticed something.

"Hey, where's my saber?" I said. I really hope I didn't drop it somewhere.

"I have it." Emilia answered. "I had to borrow your saber from your nanotransmitter to ensure they were dead. I hope you don't mind."

That explains the holes in the heads of these machines. Should have put two and two together sooner.

"Not at all. You can keep that saber if you like. You can make better use of it then me anyway. If those things get close you just slash them with it."

"Thanks, I'll put it to good use."

Eh, why not. I got like how many of those sabers back home? Ten, twenty? And I'm more of a claw guy anyway.

"So that last one's still at the door right?" Emilia asked, and right on cue another bang at the door answered her question for us.

I turned to Emilia. "Do you think you could do those super zondes as you said once more?"

Emilia shook her head no

Drat. We'll have to be in another life or death situation before I see anything close to what she was talking about. I really hope it's not in here.

"Ok then, another ideal." I pondered. "Emilia, you give me back my line shield and take cover on the other side of the room. I'll stay here in front of the door and destroy the Stateria when you open the door from the other console."

"Sounds good. Let's do it." Emilia said.

The green lines along Emilia's clothes vanished as she handed my line shield back to me. I placed the line shield back in its slot on the back of my belt and the green lights illuminated through the fabrics of my clothing once more. I felt a little ting surge of the photons through me as they formed a protective barrier around my body.

Mathis is back in action baby.

I made my way to the penetrated door, while Emilia took shelter at the other door.

"Ok Emilia, On three." I said reloading my shotgun.

"Right!" Emilia called out from the other door.

"One…"

I took a deep breath and readied for action.

"Two…"

I focused my grip on my gun and I took aim.

"Three!"

The doors opened wide, my aim was straight down the center, but nothing was there.

All I saw was nothing but that white gas. I was right about the smokescreen thing.

"Wait…" I muttered…

If my memory serves me correctly, what comes next after this is it's cannons…

I stopped my aim and moved my right arm towards the door.

"Aegis!" I shouted as my shield formed to protect me.

I was right. Three yellow orbs blasted out from the white cloud and met the unmovable object Aegis. The yellow of the cannon blasts smashed against the energy of the Aegis and scattered behind me, leaving me unphased.

"After three shots comes the ramming technique…" I muttered to myself.

I love programmed patterns. It makes Stateria much easier then monsters. They follow a system of commands and have set ways of attacking and defending.

Again, I was right. The horned Stateria came out of the gas cloud and rammed me. Or at least it tried. It met the Aegis's defense and bashed itself against the barrier of the Aegis.

I could see Emilia's handiwork on this fiend. The Armor was pratically gone, torn off from the multiple zondes she shot. It looked like a metal frame.

Which made breaking this thing a lot easier. I took aim with my shotgun and with a single blast I took it down. I reloaded and pumped another round of shots into the brain of the machine, killing it for good. Better safe then sorry.

"Didn't even break a sweat." I said with a smile to my companion. I took a walk backwards to her. You sure did a fine job breaking this thin-

Something shot out of the gas like wildfire and rammed me. A fifth, different Stateria rammed my at full speed and smashed me against the wall. Up close I saw what this Stateria looked like. It was a different Stateria model, the others took the appearance of a horned bettle, this one was fashioned after serpents. It looked like a curled up Snake, with a glowing blue core was around where the neck was and two tails, one flowing like a normal tail and the second looking like a giant stinger.

A giant stinger Which tried to impale me right in the heart. With me pinned against the wall it tried to inflict a fatal blow with it's stinger tail.

Thank the great light that I have that photon shield. Each stab went nowhere, but regardless the machine couldn't figure that the photon line shields were preventing it from breaking any skin. I wasn't going to give this thing the time to process a new way to break my line shield, so I grabbed onto it with my left hand, formed my claw in my right hand, and jammed my claw into the power core on it's neck.

Without a power source, the A-photon machine fell down dead.

It's times like this I shouldn't let my guard down. If I didn't have that line shield I'd be dead about now, I need to keep my mind on the game.

"I hate those things." I said. Those snake ones, I think they're model name is Tavalus or something. Bloody things always manage to hit me…Even when I see them coming a mile away.

I switched to my shotgun once again and moved to the fading white gas. The cloud dissipated without any threats inside it.

I turned to Emilia. "Stay here for the moment, I'll call you when it's all clear." I said to her, to which she responded with a nod.

With that out of the way, I marched myself outside the damaged door and surveyed the area.

There were two Badira and one Go-Badira outside the door. I assumed they were waiting for those Stateria to kill any intruders before heading in there and picking on the remains.

"Damnit" I thought to myself. Another Go-Badira. I know if this thing gets away from me it'll come back with another horde. And there's no way I can let that happen.

I took the initiative and attacked first. I gunned down the Go-Badira with a quick blast from my shotgun. It was dead instantaneously

The next two turned towards to me. They ran in opposite directions. One ran towards me and the other ran away.

My priorities shifted towards the former. It jumped at me with it's fangs bared I would blast this thing point blank if it wasn't for me needing to reload with no time to do so.

Instead the jumping Badira met the butt of my shotgun. I hit the airborne Badira with the butt of my gun and knocked it into the ground, I then pumped and reloaded my shotgun and shot the Badira dead.

I reloaded and fired at the the final badira. My shots missed the creature and I saw it jumping off the edge and into the water below.

"Damn." I said to myself.

Oh well, I got the important one anyway. We'll have to keep moving, if there was three Badira here, then that means there's going to be more heading this way soon.

I searched left, right, and around. The room was clear. Time to call Emilia.

"All Clear! You can come out Emilia!" I shouted to her back in the hallway.

Emilia walked out and judging by the look on her face, she was impressed with my handiwork.

"Wow…you're something else Mathis. You really are a mercenary." Emilia said with a smile. "With you around, maybe I'll actually get out of here."

"Don't you work for one Emilia?" I asked.

"Well" Emilia answered "Sure, I may technically work at a private security firm, but this fighting stuff isn't for me."

Emila crossed her arms in annoyance of her digging up old memories. "Not that my boss cares. No, he dragged me into this death trap of a relic site because he says I'm lazy."

Her hands rose from their folded position and shook with a so-called "fury".

"Ooohh, he gets under my skin! Who's he to tell me when to work?" Emilia said before crossing her arms once again in annoyance.

I hesitated for a moment thinking about my response.

The response was simple. Agree, agree agree. You do not cause an argument with the only person who can help you.

Or at least that's what I told myself to say instead of what I really wanted to say.

I nodded my head in response.

"Exactly!" Emilia said. "The nerve! I know I'm not the best employee, but I'm just sixteen and I shouldn't work much anyway…And I know I can be a little picky about work some times…And it's been a while since I did any work …And the boss has to get someone to make sure I'm safe on the field... and…"

That's a lot of ands Emilia…

"….but still! I'm still right! Every time I don't try to get away I end up knee thick in crap just like this and almost get myself killed. I don't even know how Kraz is able to even manage anything with the way he does things."

She unfolded one of her hands towards me for my opinion.

You're with me on this, right Mathis?"

Crap it's response time. I nodded "Yea, I am"

"Yes yes, exactly. I…"

I nodded, nodded, and nodded some mo…

"…Oh..." she sighed "I get it. You're just saying that."

I froze.

Aw crap, she saw through it. "Emil-" I tried to say.

Emilia raised her hand and cut me off. "It's fine Mathis, I'm used to it." She said "I'm just a whiney crybaby. No one ever takes my side. I know I'm a complainer."

Emilia took a great big sigh. She turned around away from me "Whatever, with your help, I should be able to make it out of here in one piece. Then he'll get a real earful."

Emilia rallied her annoyance at her boss once again and became fuming with energy as she continued her rant. "The seed are gone" he says, the relic site is "completely safe" he says. Safe my ass. I've almost been killed more times in this stupid relic site more times then I can count."

She gave a death glare at a little scrap of lightweight metal next to her feet.

"You stupid relic site!" she yelled as Emilia focused her anger on that little scrap of metal and kicked it across the room. "Why'd you have to turn on!?"

I gave Emilia a minute to calm down. As she let loose the rest of her anger I pondered the question myself, but I couldn't come up with a single reason why.

It just seemed like it went off randomly. And what would set them off?

No answer, I really had no clue. I only had one idea of what to do in this situation. Just find that second exit, pray that the exit isn't destroyed, and pray again there's nothing worse outside.

Until then just work with what you got and survive. I've survived worse then this, far far worse. I am not dying in this filthy hole.

I hope I get out of here soon. I would have been done by now and back home taking a nice bath, and getting ready for my birthday. And I could if it wasn't for this stupid relic site going all haywire on me.

"Why did this site turn on in the first place?" I said to myself.

Seems like Emilia herd me "You know, that's a good question. Have any relic sites ever gone active when the SEED weren't attacking?"

"None that I know about." I answered my companion. With something else to think about other then that boss of hers, Emilia put her hand under her chin and began to think. "Why the hell did ours turn on? These things aren't suppose to turn on right?"

Honestly, I had no clue. I'd call myself decent with modern day machines, but ancient technology is a whole other story.

"Probably so…well, I suppose maybe some have." She said to me. "With probability and all one probably went haywire but still that doesn't answer the question. I suppose it's hard to say for sure."

Emilia closed her eyes and processed some more. It was like the girl was loading more datafiles into her brain.

"Well, I suppose that's true." I said "Though that's not really much to work wi-" was all I managed to get out before Emilia cut me off.

"These sites were made by the ancients react to the elementary particles emitted by the SEED, mostly what they use to corrupt and create more SEED-Forms. But…does that explain the disruptions observed in the magnetic field? Hardly. ". Emilia said to herself.

She seemed not to be listening to me and just letting her thoughts run wild. Another quirk I suppose. Emilia took a deep breath before her brain continued to think

"You need mass concentration of SEED-particles to even create a minor magnetic disruption. To create a magnetic disruption similar to the one that the datapad picked up you'd need a lot of SEED-Particles, and there's no way that could have been made and evade detection. The last of the SEED was driven out three years ago, and no resurgences have been detected across the entire Gurhal system and even our neighboring systems, so that theory that a SEED-form activated the relic site is out of the question."

"But still that doesn't answer why that this place became active and no others have." She asked herself.

Emilia's train of thought I think made sense. I don't know much about the SEED, but I do know they make electronics and equipment go crazy when there's a lot of them…just…never why. Maybe I should ask?

I somewhat raised my hand to catch Emilia's attention to no avail. She turned around; her hand was still on her chin trying to find an answer to the question.

She didn't notice me at all; her mind was completely lost in her train of thought and it seems like my ears were along for the ride.

"Maybe…" Emilia said rubbing her chin. "If this whole relic site is run by some sort of master program, then that means that there must be some sort of trigger to activate the master program."

I gave up and listened in. Hopefully I get it.

"Hmmm…those magnetic fields might have something to do with this. If the datapad is correct, there were magnetic waves emitted from the relic site at the same time that the site went active.

The coincidence is uncanny…there must be some connection to it. If someone was already in the ruins, this could have been a failed attempt to shut down the master control program via an electronic magnetic disrupting device or a EMP of sorts, but the device failed and instead the self preservation triggers built into the master control system activated and went into high alert. There's no proof of any of that, but that is the only theory I can form at the moment that might explain all of this."

"Regardless of any reason as to why it went active, Relic sites can be shut down manually. If I remember my manuscripts right, that Sun King guy himself mandated manual shutdowns after one went active and attacked him by accident, or so the recovered manuscripts say."

"We may not be able to make the creatures in here go away, but if we find the master control room and turn it all off, we can shut the Stateria down… or even better adjust the IFF signal to make the Stateria protect us instead, giving us security until rescue comes and making future expeditions in this place much safer…"

"…Or, uh…hmmm…yeah, something like that. " Emilia said

My jaw almost dropped.

Yep…Emilia's a genius. That girl's brain is worth it's weight in gold. I don't think she herself really understands that though and puts herself down, but I think that's why she was brought here. She isn't a good fighter and didn't even know how to do Technics right, she was a complainer and she's hard to get going.

But…when she does get going, her intelligence was something else completely. The way she's able to access systems that I and most people could never access. This girl is something else.

I'm officially convinced that Emilia's on a whole another level. This girl has some sort of gift.

"Wow, just wow." I said to Emilia "You really know your stuff on all of this." I said to Emilia "And I like that plan too".

Seems like she finally herd me. I don't think she was even paying attention. She took my response quite different then I thought.

"Y-You were listening to me?" Emilia quickly said. She followed up with a sigh "Oh no no no, that's not…That's all common knowledge." Emilia said. "You can ask any mercenary you want. They'll tell you the same thing."

"You can ask any mercenary you want, they won't know half of that." I rebutted. "I as hell don't know that. "

And I doubt Emilia's superior does either. I'd bet a thousand Meseta that he can't use access this stuff at all. But Emilia can, so that's why he brought her here.

Emilia sighed and turned around, I don't think the girl believed me and thought I was lying. "It's ok Mathis" She said "You don't need to act like that and pretend you believe my crazy idea. Noone ever listens, noone ever does."

"Emilia" I said, putting my hand on her shoulder. "I can tell you I am listening." And I can tell you I'm not lying when I say that that's a damn better plan then what I had in mind."

Emilia was taken back. I think I even noticed a light blush on her face "What? Really? You do?"

I took a step back from her, and my left hand went right behind my head "Yes, I really do Emilia."

I took a deep breath before continuing. I really didn't want to admit it, but… "In all honestly, I've just been winging it until I find a better idea or a way out. It's usually what works for me when I get in situations like this….but it doesn't seem to be doing us any good sofar. On the other hand, you know what you're talking about, and unlike me you're probably the only person down here who could actually use these machines. We can always find an exit after we turn these killer machines off or turn them to our side"

"I think we should change directions and go for it."

Emilia was very happy. "You like it? Really?"

I nodded. "Yea, a lot more."

I seem to have redoubled Emilia's moral.

"Even more reason to live past today. Let's hurry up and get this over with! Let's find that control room. When we do our troubles are over!"

Good. Mission accomplished. I got a better goal and a renewed moral. Things are starting to look up.

"So, first things first. How are we going to find it?" I asked.

Emilia activated her holographic data pad once again. "Well, if I can find the source of that magnetic disruption, it might lead us right to the master control system or at least we can find out what the heck happened here. My datapad should have logged it in automatically earlier…let's see…" Emilia said as she worked on her datapad. It only took moments.

"Here we go. This source is close. It's about two floor below us and little whiles off."

"That doesn't sound too bad" I said. "Let's go"

And in the end, that turned out to be quite true. We hit a lucky break for once as we continued through the relic site. With the line shield with Emilia and me on point, we continued to make our way through the area. I ran into a little resistance on the way, but my shotgun won out each time. Eventually, we entered into a new and different section, definitely the deeper chambers of the relic site.

The rooms were larger, wider and more open. We must be getting closer to the more important areas of the relic site. This section should be patrolled by the larger Stateria, not the small ones I've seen before, but the huge nasty ones.

We seemed to be the only living things in this area. As I looked around there were no traces of anyone else coming in earlier, or even any Badira. Not a single living thing.

We were the first.

It's kinda profound when I think about it. This place has been empty and abandoned for not just years or tens of years, but millenniums. Not a single soul has been in here since our ancestors battled against the SEED millennias ago.

Emilia and I are the first two humans to enter into these rooms in ten thousand years. Ten Thousand.

Oh my father would be jealous that it's me and not him down here. Or happy, saying "that's my son."

Note to self: Take dad down here later. I think he'd like that.

"Wooooww…" Emilia said as the next blast door opened infront of us.

Wow indeed. The room was huge. What stood infront of us was a platform linking to a large rusty white lift that was meant for carrying the large Stateria and equipment to different floors. Emilia and I walked to the lift.

It seemed sturdy. Though, I am really not confident in this thing. The more I think about it, this lift is old…really old. Can this still be really working after ten thousand years?

The other thing that I didn't like is that the console that operates the lift was halfway open had a red light shining out from it.

Emilia went straight to work on it, linking her datapad and figuring out what was up with it.

"So, what's the prognosis?" I asked her.

Emilia sighed "It says there's a malfunction and it won't allow us to go down. Too dangerous." Emilia answered. "It must have gotten damaged during the ancient SEED invasion back when this place was still operational."

I walked up to the edge of the lift and looked down. We were two floors from the bottom, where our precious location lies. It'd take forever to find a stairway or a path that would lead us there.

Well, I'm glad I brought some high quality rope with me now.

"Seems like we're gonna have to climb down from here. I should have a rope we can use. Shouldn't be too much of a problem if we do it the old fashioned way." I told Emilia

Emilia was shocked, and then crossed her arms "No way, that's way too much work." Said Emilia.

Oh right. I forgot that part about her. She's the lazy type.

"The lift's not working and we need to get down." I said to Emilia "Climbing isn't that bad of a solution."

Emilia looked around on this ancient lift and got to the console that operates it.

"We could do that, ooooor" said my lazy "complanion" "We could just fix the lift."

"That's old and malfunctioning and ten thousand years old? That doesn't sound like a good idea" I said.

"Nonsense, all I have to do is just jury-rig the system and manually override it to let us go down." Emilia said and got straight to work on that.

With the butt of her staff, Emilia wedged open the console and got to the precious inner wirings of the thing. Emilia got down on her knees and linked her datapad directly to it. With one hand she used the pad and the other she spend doing something to the console's systems.

The first moment she started, the console sparked. Emilia pulled back, and then reentered.

Gotta give the girl points for ingenuity and determination.

I asked her, "Are you sure that's safe?"

"Safer then anything else I've done today?" She told me back.

Good point.

I think I'll give her a minute before I press my plan again. She continued on her attempt to find the easy way out of this situation. Her body wiggled left and right with her arm, trying to work her magic on this.

I didn't keep my attention on that, though from the looks I have had, Emilia does have quite a nice figure…I should be lucky to have a cute and genius (abit very lazy) girl helping me out.

Though I'd never actually say that outloud. That thought stays and dies with me.

"Comon…work will ya? I do not want to climb my way down here." I overherd her mumble. "Work you ancient piece of junk."

The console sparked again, forcing Emilia to pull out once again. She took a great big sigh and tried once again.

This is getting us nowhere. Sorry Emilia, but I think we're climbing down.

"I don't think that's going to work Emilia. It's too old. It's not gonna work."

"Nonsense. I can get it working." She said back. "Just because this thing is old doesn't mean I can't fix it"

Emilia was hopeful this would work. I wasn't.

"I'm not sure about that. It's been like what, ten thousand years?" I said as I watched her. "I'm not sure that a damaged ten thousand year old cargo lift that's been exposed to the elements for ten thousand years would still be-"

The lift shook and came to life.

"Working? Yea, I think so." She said as she pulled her head out and gave me a big smile.

The lift shook once more and it began moving down. Emilia on the other hand pulled herself back up to her feet.

"You can still climb down if you want. I'm not stopping you." She said with another cute smile on her face, claiming her victory

I smiled too. "I'll pass." I responded

I am not saying no to this. Rather take this rocky lift down then rappel down anyday. Though I am staying next to the wall. Just to be sure…yea…just to be sure.

The ride was uneventful. I checked my gear, made sure I had everything. I did. So good. I had enough Healing mates to keep me good incase I take a hits or to recharge the Line shield, I had about ten or so traps left, my gear was all in good condition, and our food supplies would last us another three days easy.

We're doing pretty good sofar.

The lift hit the bottom and we both got off. As soon as I got off, the lift started moving once again back up to where it came.

"See? The lift was no problem." Emilia said, putting on hand a foundation beam of the lift "Perfectly safe."

The entire lift raddled and shook the moment Emilia placed her hand on the beam

Emilia backed off and looked up. We both knew what was coming next. We cleared the lift before it fell.

The lift raddled once more.

We both knew that if this was a story, this would be when you cue the lift failing just to prove Emilia wrong on how safe it was.

But this is real life and not fiction, and the lift didn't fall. It just rocked a bit, and then moved back to it's starting position.

"Still perfectly safe?" I said with a crack of a smile.

"Umm…mostly safe." Emilia said going to the next blast door to open. "Let's just keep on going."

This door was massive in size. It was several meters high, so high it a vehicle could fit into it.

"Couldn't agree with you more Emilia" I said back to her as I walked up to this massive blast door.

Emilia linked up her datapad, but the door didn't creek open like all the others.

This didn't look good. Neither did the expression on Emilia's face as she spend a whole minute doing whatever she was doing to the lock.

Emilia pulled back "Encryption's too tight. I'm not sure I can just bypass the lock and open this one up Mathis. We might actually need the key on this one."

I suppose we'll have to do this the regular way. Thank goodness Emilia's here to override all these locks. We'd be here forever in a dungon crawl if we had to look for every single key just to progress a few feet.

Now where to look….where to look.

We started to search the place up and down and couldn't find the key at all.

"You know…" Emilia said.

I turned to my left and saw one of the few objects in this room.

A box. A simple, ordinary, box. It might contain supplies, but I was doubtful on that.

Emilia's eyes were focused on the box that was next to her.

Don't tell me she…

"You think it's in the box?" I asked

"Just like in those adventure videogames. They always put stuff in boxes" Emilia said, raising her staff and smashing the cargo box open.

"You play too many videogames. Why would someone put a key in a box?" I said to her as she searched the broken box.

She searched that thing longer then she wou….

"It's in there isn't it?" I said.

"Yeeep" followed by Emilia pulling out said key from the broken box.

I didn't say a word. 2 for 2 now. The universe today sure loves to prove me wrong.

Emilia pulled out the keycard and placed it into the console and activated it. The lock opened sealing the two halves of the massive blast doors opened, and following the large doors slowly creaked and opened up for us revealing way ahead.

Soon, soon we'll be there, and safety is in our grasp.

"Ready Emilia?" I said.

"Yea", she said back

"Let's go inside." I said.

The two of us walked into this large chamber. The room had a "high class" feel to it that anyone could see.

I took a deep breath. The air was colder, I could see some dust floating in the air, kicked up by the recent life given to the room.

!

The large blast doors slammed closed right behind us

"WHAT? What the-AH!"

Just as Emilia and I walked into the chamber, the giant room lit up in red alarms and we herd a slam right behind us. The whole room erupted with a blaring alarm noise. I didn't even have time to look behind me before the alarm went on, Emilia and I covered our ears to save our ears.

Before I knew it we herd a voice speak in a language that I could not understand, but one I did know of. It was the old photonic language, the language used by our ancestors the ancients. It blared the same message over and over.

"Oh you've got to be kidding me!" I herd Emilia say as she turned around and ran back to the console on our side of the blast door.

I take it she knew it. And I take it whatever it say was not good.

"Emilia? What's going on?" I turned to Emilia asked.

Emilia ignored me and worked on the console quickly before she gave up and stopped.

"We're locked in!" She yelled to me over the sound of the alarm.

"WHAT?" I yelled over the roar of the alarm.

"This whole area just sealed itself! It's saying there's been a breach and the whole place is going into quarantine!" Emilia yelled. "It's saying there's a breach and a contagion and forcing a emergency quarantine."

The roaring of the alarm and booming voice ended, but the red lights continued to flash. We both took a moment and regained our breaths and senses.

"The quarantine will end after a set amount of time and the doors will reopen…In about 120 hours time... five days…"

My eyes widened. "We're stuck? Oh no….oh hell no…" I said with my hand rubbing my forehead.

Emilia walked past me and pointed ahead of us.

"Though, there is some good news. We're in the master control area. I found the master control room, and it's just a few rooms away. There's an Stateria repair room ahead, followed by the water purification room. Right after that is master control room. And if I'm lucky, I might be able to turn off the quarantine in there to let us out.

Alright! We may be stuck, but at least we have that. We're almost through the hard part.

"That is good news" I said. "I do not want to be stuck here on my 18th birthday. Over my dead body am I going to be in here longer then I have to. "

Emilia turned my way and asked "Huh?"

Oh…right. I never did tell her.

"My birthday's in two days." I answered nonchalantly

"Even more reason then before to get out of here." Emilia commented.

"You can say that again." I said. "Make sure my Line shield is working 100%. If there's some Stateria in that are fixed, they may come to life. Get ready for a fight."

I saw Emilia frown upon thinking about that. She did as I advised.

I did too. I still had everything from before, I drew my Pistol in one hand and my claw in the other.

We walked down the corridor and opened the door ahead of us.

This definitely was a maintenance room for Stateria. These were some of the strongest stateria the ancients had to offer. Some looked like foot-soldiers with sword and shield, some are modeled after four legged beasts, and others looked like walking juggernauts with axes. All of them are locked into place by safety locks for repairs.

When I looked at some of the giant Stateria that we passed by, quite a few were damaged. Some had nicks on them, a few had scratches, and others had bulletholes in them. Sitting there for so long the ones with open and exposed parts all by this time started to rust and break apart. But those were only a few. The rest looked like they were built yesterday.

Figuring these things are ten thousands years old, seeing something not just standing but ready for battle ten millennia later just proved how well made these things are.

But those damages on the Stateria troubled me. It seemed like the SEED never came in here and attacked this place, if it did the whole place would have shown scars of battle. So if it wasn't them then who could have caused it?

I think I felt a grim sense come over me. And a grim thought.

It made sense that the Stateria fought against the SEED and everything that wasn't human and they automatically try to kill those targets. It should only be humans inside the site after all working on everything inside here. So my question is then…why does the Stateria attack humans?

I could explain myself, as I'm not fully human, but it also attacks humans like Emilia too.

So why? Why would they attack their own creators? If you're being slaughtered by a horde of evil aliens and you build a site to house weapons and research ways to deal with the said evil SEED aliens, why do you need weapons to attack your fellow humans?

That didn't add up. I would process more, but something caught my eye that stopped my train of thought for another mystery. I looked below me and saw footsteps infront of Emilia and I. She continued on while I stopped in my tracks.

Freaking footsteps. Fresh, freaking footsteps of a shoe on the ground. There were no footsteps and no traces of anything remotely human at all during the majority of our time down here. So why were there some now?

How the hell does someone get this deep without leaving any trace or evidence?

Damn it all, none of this is making sens-

"Mathis? Is something wrong?" interrupting my train of thought

I snapped myself out of it. "No, nothing." I said before jogging up to where Emilia was.

I told myself to forget about this tangent for now. I can ponder and sort it out after we're safe. Not before.

As I ran through this hallway of giant Stateria, I swore I noticed a light behind us flicker. I stopped, looked back and saw nothing. I ignored it and moved on.

We made it to the end of this hallway and infront of us stood another locked door. Emilia quickly went to work on it.

The door rattled once, then stopped.

"Do we need another key?" I asked my genius companion.

"No, I can get this. This door just seems a little messed up and is working slow.." She said and continued working on it.

The door rattled, and then started opening up. Slowly. Very very slowly. It took a full minute for it just to move an inch.

"Wow…that is slow. Any way I can help?" I asked.

"Not really, unless you want to turn this thing to manual and we push this door open?" She told me.

"Yea, I'll pass on that." I said. I think I'd rather just wait a few minutes.

"Hm? No desire to play muscleman?" Emilia smiled and said with a little giggle in her voice. "I thought boys your age liked to impress girls."

"I thought you said you were already impressed." I said with a little smile on my face.

Emilia smiled. "That I did"

I immediately turned around. I felt something. Something not normal. Then I felt whatever it was jump from behind us to far ahead of us.

"Emilia, did you just feel that?" I asked her.

"Feel what?" Emilia didn't seem to know anything of what I was talking about.

"Just…something strange." I said, scratching my head. "Oh man, I think this place is just starting to mess with my head now."

"I am with you on that, the sooner we get out of here the better. This place is really starting to give me the creeps too." Emilia said with a hint of emotion. "All these machines around here—they're the master control room's automated defenses all right. Though…I feel like they're watching us.

The door cracked open just enough for us to get through.

"About time." Emilia said. "C'mon, let's get out of here."

As I was about to lay my hand out for Emilia to go first, we herd a footstep. A large, heavy footstep…

…from behind.

Oh crap.

**Chapter 5 end  
**

* * *

Author's Notes: Ok, I promised this chapter would be the last chapter in this prologue, but this chapter, the way I've been writing it, seems to be just as big as the rest of this story. So instead I decided just to split this super massive chapter 5 into 5 and 6 for now. Part 6 will come soon, and I promise there's be lots of action and definitely Mathis and Emilia's journey in these ruins will end.

For everyone who's reading this, thank you for keeping up with my madness. I really do enjoy writing this, every single time I do, I love it.  
Thanks.

You all know what's next.

See you next time space cowboy.


	6. Chapter 6 - Never Alone

Here we go, the final chapter of this tutorial arc. This one shouldn't be as long as the last one, but should be just as satisfying. Enjoy the show...

* * *

**Chapter 6- Never alone**

* * *

Emilia and I herd a large footstep behind us.

"Mathis...what's that?" I herd Emilia say

I didn't need to answer, we both knew.

I turned around and saw one giant hulking Stateria coming out of it's docking bay.

This Stateria was made of five parts. The two reverse jointed legs, a small center body, and it's two arms with massive circular shoulders, all being held together by pure photon tethers on the center body.

But that's not what we stared at. We stared at its axe. A huge, large, weapon taller then the story-tall behemoth itself. The mace-like Axe sparked with electricity, jolting and giving everything around it a massive zap.

It turned towards us and bellowed with all of it's might.

That thing was about to come after us!

"You're got to be kidding me! I should have kept my big mouth shut!" Emilia yelled as we backed up towards the slowly opening door.

"What do we do Mathis? That thing's gonna kill us!" Emilia asked me in frenzy.

We both saw the crack in the door. It couldn't get through, but we could.

"The door! We can lock it out!" I shouted pointing at it.

We both hurried to the door as the thing started running at us at a full sprint. We'd only have a moment.

Unlike what one might assume of old machines, Stateria were fast. Very fast. Especially the big ones. When fighting a semi-sentient horde of abominations one needs to be quick on it's feet, and this thing was definitely one of them.

Emilia went first while I took out something to slow him down.

I picked up another trap bomb from my stash. I activated it and threw it at the charging monstrosity that was running our way. It didn't care of what I threw at it, and only realized that I threw a bomb it's way was the moment I detonated it under his feet. This thing is a Extra strength Stun Trap, EX-stun trap for short. It was made for capturing targets and prey for hunters, the Stun Trap subdue the target with increased gravity and an energy system that traps whatever's inside the trap and blasts it with said energy that's gushing out of the trap.

Which is exactly what happened to the huge Stateria charging after us.

The trap activated, and waves of energy erupted from below the monstrosity. The energy was gushing over and over, blasting it's body with pure photon energy while fully restraining it. It tried to struggle and move, which it barely managed to do, and all it could do is just roar at us.

Time to go.

I squeezed myself and slid through the barely open door. Emilia was waiting for me on the other side.

"Close it!" I said as I popped out of the other side.

I saw Emilia hit the close button on the panel next to the door, with both of us seeing that it wasn't working.

Ten pushes later, we realized it wasn't going to work.

"Plan B Emilia" I said as I pointed to the other side of the door "Get on that side and let's push this thing closed."

"Roger Mathis"

I grabbed the left side, and she grabbed the right side. We both double teamed the door and pushed to close it.

"Hurry!" I said. "Before it's free"

We both pushed with all our might, the door slowly budging and getting closer to creaking shut.

It wasn't much we needed. Just enough to close and get it to lock itself again. That's all we needed. Just a little bit of might, just a little bit of…

We herd the Stateria roar again. And this time accompanied by footsteps.

"It's free!" I herd Emilia say in panic.

"Don't Stop Pushing!" I shouted to her.

If we stopped to look we were dead. If we stopped for anything we were dead.

My body uncomfortably pushed itself harder and further. We needed to do this.

"Commeeoooooonnnnnn..." I said to myself "Push!"

It was louder, getting louder running after us. The doors were getting closer and closer. This thing was the only thing that cold save us.

This thing was seconds away. We only had a few seconds before it was too late.

"Ahhhhhhh!"

With a battlecry I gave it one final push with all my might, throwing all my weight and all my strength into this last attempt to stay alive.

"Uh-ARRRRRR!"

I pushed with all my might until I herd a loud clacking noise

The doors connected locked itself down, the sound of the giant Stateria just instantly ending with the sound-proof door closed.

Both of us had a moment of silence as we began to pace towards our accomplishment, the now locked door.

"We…we did it…:" Emilia said catching her breath.

"Yea…we di-"

"!"

My instincts kicked in again. I grabbed Emilia and activated the Aegis right in the nick of time.

The doors exploded in our face, the smashing force of the Stateria attempting to break down the door once again blasted us right off our feet and threw us onto the circular platform.

I held on tight to Emila as we landed on the circular platform, my back slammed against the hard surface and Emilia bounced off me and onto the ground

It took a moment before I got my bearings again, I clutched my head.

Damn...I felt a pain the back of my head, instinctively checking it I felt some of my own blood.

...this isn't good.

I rose up and took out whatever healing item I had, a trimate and applied it to the back of my head.

I felt the mate do it's job and started to heal up my wound, pulling in photons and applied whatever nanotechnology fluid it's made of to fix my bleeding head.

As I did this, I turned to find Emilia. I saw the girl unresponsive on the ground. The impact must have knocked her out, or at least for the moment. Line shields are great to protect a person, but a impact is still a impact and a concussion is still a concussion.

I pulled out a moon atomizer, activated it, and slid it Emilia's way. The healing device turned on, and with a quick check it got to work on Emilia.

It began to shine a light onto Emilia. Focusing on her head, then the rest of her.

Regenerative lasers or something. Mom uses them alot at work. It woke Emilia up quite fast, her popping awake and quickly finding her way back to the waking world, turning around onto her back, her legs facing me and her stri-!

Don't look. Turn.

Now.

Now.

I did what a gentlemen should and I averted my gaze, and looked back towards the door.

Seems like I was wrong with thinking it broke through. It just seems like it almost did.

"Mathis?" Emilia said as she began to see what was going on again.

I continued to look at the door.

The door had been breached, but it was not enough for the Stateria to break through. I could see that it had rammed the door we had just closed, almost breaking it. Somehow, barely, the door held.

"Urgh...I felt like I got hit by a truck...Mathis, are you alright?" I herd Emilia groan out. I turned around to her again, and saw her back on her feet, extending her hand to help me up.

I took it. "As good as I could be right now. And for the record, that's not what getting hit by a truck feels like."

"How-"

He herd a massive rumble. Like there was a earthquake in the middle of this place. Like something huge was barraging right towards us.

Gah...I must have hit my head too hard. I feel like a migraine is starting to come on again.

To be honest, my gut told me that the massive Stateria wasn't the source, but...

" Ack…is that thing gonna break down the door?" Emilia said to me. Looking at her I noticed Emilia had her hand on her head too. That bump to the head must have hurt her too.

My mind instantly went over what would happen if that thing got to us. Needless to say, not good.

"We need to get going!" I said.

"I know I-" Emilia began to say as we felt that massive rumble again.

Move!

"We gotta move Emilia. Now!" I said, pointing towards the next door.

"That's the master control room. If we can get there I might be able to turn this thing off!"

"Sounds great. Lets go!" I said as I grabbed her and got her right on track and running to our destination.

As we did we herd the door finally break. I looked back to see the juggernaut stateria tearing the door apart to reach us in it's mechanical bloodlust.

We stopped at the edge of the circular platform. Below us was the water purification system, and across the short gap was the large door leading to the master computer roo-

!

"Mathis! I herd Emilia shout.

My beast instincts kicked in again

"Mathis, Duck!"

I turned and saw what she saw in the middle of my own body reacting to it. The very door the stateria ripped apart was thrown right at us. We both dropped to the floor immediately, and just in time to avoid a crushing death as it whooshed over our heads and collided with the door we just tried to enter, leaving a tangled mesh of unpassable destroyed metal.

As the Stateria walked into the water room, we felt a third rumble in the room after it entered.

The Stateria had been damaged, it's A-photon core seemed to have been damaged in his ramming of the door. It slowly began to leak photons out of it.

We herd a another siren screech and a loud speaker flailing once again. Red lights shining into the room as a black wall slammed down where the Stateria had just passed through. It immediately slammed down, slicing the parts of the door that were still there. Looking forward we saw the same on our end. A black containment door dropped and sealed off our escape route.

Oh shit! "Emilia! what the hell is going on?" I shouted to her.

"I'm trying to hear!" She said back to me.

Emilia "What is it saying!?"

"Something about the area being compromised. A serve photon aggregation or something inside this place, and because of it we're trapped!"

With that thing?! Oh no...

"What?!"

The PA system repeated it's works for a moment, and then the voice changed to a different male's voice. It's tone was sinister, and the beginning of each line seemed to start the same.. As it began to speak through the single PA in the room, we saw the Stateria's axe smash it.

Whatever it was, it was tired of the voice.

The lights returned to normal, but the walls that sealed us in the room stayed down.

I looked at the Stateria again.

I got it. The Stateria must be the source. I know for a fact A-photons can be dangerous. That must be it. The core is unstable and the lockdown was initiated. It's got to be that, right?

A roar made me realize that regardless, we're going to have to fight this thing. This thing is injured. This thing is hurt. We can do this, and we can win.

I pulled out my claw from my nanotransmitter.

"Emilia, we can take this thing." I said to her.

We can handle this…

Emilia didn't share my barely-there confidence.

"Whaddaya mean, handle this?" She said. "Don't tell me you're going to fight that thing?!"

"Not me. Us Emilia. If we work together we can stop that thing. If I can take out that core, we could stop this thing." I told her

Emilia and I looked at eachother eye to eye.

"What choices do we have left?" I said.

Emilia knew we were out of options too.

"Ungh…this is a really really bad idea." She grabbed her staff off the ground took a battle stance with it. "Alright, I'm with you! If you say we can handle it, we can handle it!"

We watched as the Stateria jumped down onto the circular platform of ours brandishing it's oversized axe.

"So then Mathis...what's the plan?" Emilia said to me.

I could see she was a bit scared, but seemed to be fighting through that fear.

I needed to do all I could to help her.

For that I needed a plan. Or something...or anything

Ok Mathis, think. How do I stop that thing?

The core.

Yea, like I said before, the core.

If I can damage that A-photon core I might be able to make it fail and shut down. A trap could do the trick. Take out the power cord and machine goes dead.

Ok. That's the goal. Now how in the hell do I get there?

I can't risk going toe to toe with this thing...A direct hit and I'll be a goner. I don't have any good armor even capable of protecting me from injury. I can shrug off a few things, but not that axe.

As long as she's got my line shield... Emilia could on the other hand. And that Zonde she can do might...if she could keep it in that zone and keep it distracted on her I could sneak up and throw in my trap bombs.

The Stateria jumped from towards our position. I looked up and saw the Stateria's Axe about to come down upon us.

I quickly threw myself to the left, and Emilia threw herself to the right as an oversized axe sparking with electric photons came crashing down where we stood.

"Mathis! What do we do?!" I herd Emila call to me.

Emilia's going to have to risk and bait it.

"Emilia! You have to distract it so I can get in close!" I yelled back to her. "Use your Zonde!"

"WHAT?!" I herd Emilia yell back at me "Are you out of your mind?!"

The Stateria took no time to attack. It immediately raised it's battle axe again at me.

I shouted back "You've got the line shield! If that thing hits me I'm dead!"

"oh damn it..." I thought i overheard Emilia said.

"Listen Emilia, You have to keep that thing focused on you so I can take out it's photon core!"

The thing seemed to notice me first. The very thing I didn't want it to.

Well, actually swinging it's oversized weapon was the thing I didn't want it to do...

Which it just did.

I brought up the Aegis to defend myself just in time with just precision. The corner of my eyes saw Emilia's face of shock, probably wondering what I was doing.

Normally, a tiny shield like the Aegis shouldn't, by all accounts, to protect me in the slightest from a axe the size of a small vehicle, but this shield of mine wasn't a ordinary shield, this was my shield, and I knew the Aegis wouldn't fail me.

"AEGIS!"

I rose the shield up and shouted it's name. Yellow photons gathered around me and formed around the shield as I raised it up, the shield making a slight photon coat just as the oversized Axe connected with the shield... and instead of it turning me into mush the axe bounced off my shield as if it hit a steel wall and it's own momentum was reflected back at itself, throwing the massive machine off it's balance.

This was my chance. I needed something with a big bang to knock this thing off it's feet. I quickly grabbed one of my firebomb traps from my nanotransmitter, primed it and threw it at the creature.

The explosion knocked it off it's feet and the Stateria crashed on it's back.

"Yes!" I exclaimed.

Now quickly, while it's down forget the plan, get on it and jam something into that core.

Hurry!

I listened to my own head and I began to run as fast as I could to the killing machine and jumped upon it's frame.

As my feet took hold I immediately pulled out my giant sword from my nanotransmitter to take out he photon core of this monster.

All I need to do is stop this thing.  
Damage the power core and cause it to shut down. This giant sword I've been holding onto for months should do the trick. I pulled out my giant blade and ignited it's photons, the blade shimming to life with a orange coat. My hands gripped the blade as tight as I could and I jammed the blade into the machine's core.

The blade cracked the Core's containment, but failed to penetrate it. I rose the blade back up to try again, cracking the container further.

I brought the sword up one more time to jam it in.

I felt the Stateria starting to move once more, but my body acted first, jamming the giant sword into the giant core further, finally logging it in just in time as it began to move.

And I suddenly realized I shoulda jumped when I had the chance, and far too late to pull away as I saw in the corner of my eye the Statera's hand coming for me.

I pulled back, but the logged blade kept my in place long enough for the Stateria's hand to grab me with it's big metallic claw.

"Mathis!" I herd Emilia yell. I struggled to break free, but I couldn't against this thing's massive grip as it tightened around my body as it got back up on it's feet, one hand holding onto it's axe, the other onto me.

Emilia just stood there in paralysis without a clue of how to help me, her only ticket out of this deathtrap.

...this is bad...

Instead of crushing me as I'd expect, I felt the giant metal beast's hand begin to cock itself back...

...oh shit please tell me he's not...

Emilia yelled my name as I felt my body jerk forward as he did exactly what I feared and threw me across the platform. With a loud Ahhh I hit the platform, hearing my left arm breaking as I landed on it, my body rolling like a log closer and closer towards the platform's edge.

"Oh shit! Shit!"

My eyes widened as my body skidded to the edge, every fiber of my being trying to move forward to stop myself from falling over.

I succeeded just in time, my body slowed to a stop just as half my legs were off the platform.

I took a moment and gave a breath of relief that I wasn't going over, and another to feel the pain in my now broken left arm surging with adrenaline as the only thing keeping me from screaming in pain.

Damn shottly throw, landed on my arm and broke it.

With a flick of my right hand I quickly popped a Trimate out of my nanotranmitter, using my good hand turned the bottom of the device and revealed a injector needle, and jammed said needle right into my arm.

I instantly felt the mate go to work, the pain doubled, and then slowly began to fate. My arm still couldn't move, but it would soon.

"I'm gonna need to find a real doctor after this..." I thought

"Mathis! Look out!"

Huh?

I looked up to see the giant Stateria with it's axe raised. It seemed to be gathering photons to itself, my blurry vision giving me enough of a clue that it ceased to stop when I did. I saw a blur of what I assumed was Emilia rushing towards me as the Stateria unleashed it's next attack.

The photons around the metal monster exploded, photons bursted from it, knocking Emilia right off her feet and sending photonic lightingbolts jumping from the axe's tip and crashing into the ground nearby, sending small shockwaves everywhere.

Said shockwaves was enough to send me over the edge. I felt my own body losing it's balance on the platform, the energy sending me back just enough for gravity to do the rest.

I felt my body slipping, and quickly acted. My trusty photon claw formed in my right hand's grip and holding it in reverse I jammed it into the platform to keep myself from falling all the way over. My chest was barely over the platform.

I looked down. I may not know exactly what's down in that watery abyss, but I definitely know it's death that awaits me if I do. And I was not going to die in this filthy hole.

I tried to pull myself back up, but I couldn't. My right hand couldn't pull my whole body up without loosening my claw's grip and sending me into the abyss, and my left arm still couldn't move.

My legs though, could move. I began to think of a way to pull me up.

I looked forward to my opponent, and I realized I wouldn't have time for any of that.

I saw the Stateria very close, and ready to finish me off.

"Oh no..." I muttered under my breath...

There was no way I could defend myself from this thing, no way to evade except for letting go...

My eyes traced to Emilia, and I saw her messing with her rod.

I saw her mumble something to herself, like "this better work" and I saw yellow photons gather around her staff.

"HEY YOU! UGLY! OVER HERE!" I heard Emilia shout before she released her first strike. A Zonde of moderate size came out blasting the Stateria's back, knocking it forward a inch, and definitely getting it's attention.

"BIG SHOT! OVER HERE!" I herd Emilia yell again, unleashing more photonic lighting bolts at the metal monster to lure it away from me.

And it worked.

My face lit up as I saw the Stateria turn around and began to focus on the new threat that was pounding it over and over again, leaving me to my own devices.

Clever girl. Thank the great light.

It got closer and closer to her.

Ok, Mathis, come up with a plan. My legs! Yes, go back to that.

I slowly began to swing my lower torso, hoping I could swing myself back up the platform.

Left...right...left...right...

I gave all my might with one final swing, swinging my right leg across and it peaked over the platform. I felt my body swing left in recoil and my claw's grip in the platform beginning to weaken. As my body swung right again I moved my foot up and caught the platform with it.

I promptly pushed myself up and rolled over my claw and onto sweet, sweet safe land. I "celebrated" with using another Trimate, taking off the top and drinking it down. Tasted like crap, but it's healing should get the rest of me fixed up for now.

"GAHHHH!" I herd my companion scream. I turned to see Emilia not doing well against the Stateria. She just nearly missed the thing's oversized axe by just a inch.

I saw Emilia launch two more Zondes at it. The first one was smacked aside by the Stateria's massive axe, and the second struck it in the shoulder, knocking it back again.

"Oh come-on!" I herd Emilia say to herself.

It's why I was aiming for the core. The armor is incredibly durable, it'll take a lot of force and a firepower we didn't have to bring it down.

To counter-attack the hit to the shoulder, it gave a wide horizontal sweep with it's axe, knocking Emilia onto her back.

...I gotta help her.

I turned once again and rolled on my stomach, and pushed myself up with my good arm and my knees and got back on my feet as Emilia did the same

But before I could re-join the fight, I saw the Stateria jump off the ground with it's axe in hand and brought it down onto Emilia. Emilia panicked, and rose her simple staff in defensive position to protect herself.

The Stateria brought the oversized weapon down on my companion and kicked up a cloud of dust.

When the dust cleared, Emilia was still there along cracked marble, the staff not really protecting her, but still ontop of her. Both she and her staff was in one piece, just dazed and slightly hurt.

It would have been Instant death, if not thanks to that line shield.

The Stateria didn't stop his attack, and brought his oversized axe up once again to bring it down right ontop my companion. Emilia rolled to her side and evaded the blow just in time, but couldn't dodge the axe sliding to and hitting Emilia like hockey puck.

My photon gun was already in my good right hand, and I started unloading my weapon into it. I had to get it away from her.

Shot after shot after shot, and it barely noticed anything.

Damn it. Why'd I let that guy borrow my H K? I need my Smg back.

I needed something with a kick to get his attention.

I put the nanotransmitter away and slid out another trap bomb. I primed the a freeze trap bomb, dropped it on the ground and kicked it the Stateria's way.

The bomb slipped under the monstrosity and exploded, Encasing the thing's left leg in ice and stopping it's advance on Emilia.

Seven left.

As it realized it was stuck and tried to move his leg to break free, I dropped and kicked my EX firebomb his way, the bomb exploding under it's core, scoring a direct hit to the target and encasing the thing in flames.

Six.

Emilia and I stopped where we were, both of us on opposite sides of our giant opponent

"Emilia! How you holding up?" I shouted in this moment of downtime.

"I think this line shield isn't working!" Emilia said to me.

"Let me get you a Trimate. It should fix it!" I shouted back to her, before reaching into my pocket and fetching it for her. Shuffling through...I could only find one left. I'm using them up too fast.

But before I could get it. The fading dust cloud was blown away again by the Stateria, both of us hearing the monstrosity's roar.

I did some damage to this thing finally. I could see it's core now had three gushing spots of photons,and the core itself had multiple cracks all over. The Machine's axe was now sparking endlessly with electricity, a last ditch effort to make itself more dangerous right now.

We were almost done here.

The Stateria turned and rushed me. It placed it's lighting axe down and like a battering ram charged at me with intent to ram me with it.

I easily moved to the side and evaded it, dodging to my left, my clothes getting a little zapped with electricity. I took a photon gun out with my left hand and began firing at the core.

Most of my shots missed...but I did suddenly realize my left hand could now move.

I switched hands took aim and with one charged shot on my right, striking the core of the machine and jumped back to avoid the Stateria's massive slash at me.

The Stateria was knocked a step back as my shot cracked it's core further.

The Stateria re-gained it's balance and prepared to attack me once again, only for three more Zondes to blast it's armor from it's side. Emilia, standing in the middle of the platform with a smile and her rod sparking, gather more photons for another Zonde.

They didn't seem to do too much damage to it, but she definitely got it's attention again. It began to move her way. The Stateria held it's oversized axe with both hands approaching Emilia, who was in the center of the platform, to take her out.

Once again, I love stateria. Pre-planned robotic movements and intelligence. It makes them very easy to exploit.

I fastened my claw on my hand, readied the bombs I had left, and took off running at it while it was not focused on me.

The Stateria brought it's axe behind him winding up his attack, the axe's shaft looking like a perfect stepping stone, abit a electrified one.

I jumped off the ground, my shoes getting slightly burnt by the electricity as I landed on the shaft of the Axe, and hopping off it like a stepping stone.

The Stateria swung it's weapon as soon as my feet left it, swinging in a upward arc at Emilia.

Figuring I heard no screams or sounds of death, I assume she dodged.

I saw my opening in the A-photon core, the one it got earlier from me. I bounced off the leg joints and made my jump onto the core itself with my free hand grabbing onto the ledge.

My hand instantly began to burn feeling it. My glove started to burn awa-

DAMN IT It's hot.

The hole was bigger then I needed, thank the great light. I don't have to wedge it open with my claw.

The Stateria suddenly knew I was on it's weakspot.

I only had a few seconds.

The hole was small, enough for a hand to fit into. Or in my case, a nano-transmitter.

I took out my nano-transmitter off my clothes and put it through the hole.

I began to shake it, a setting I pre-made onto it. All my remaining trap bombs fell out of my Nano-transmitter and rolled inside the A-photon core.

This was just intime for me to jump off the stateria before it sparked with electricity. My body took a single hit, but my adrenaline shrugged it off. I landed hit the floor rolling and landing properly for once.

I got up as fast as I could (which wasn't all too fast, with everything taking it's toll on me by now), and pulled out my detonator and just pressed it without a second's haste.

Just as the Stateria began to turn to face me, from the corner of my eye I saw red explodingout from the blue flumes of the cracked A-photon containment core, as all of my trap bombs went off at once in the machine's power core and destroyed whatever batteries that powered this metal monster.

The Axe fell to the ground, the Stateria went limp, leaning a bit forward as the power within the machine died and it shut down.

We both held our breaths for a full minute, unsure that the fight was truly over. I saw Emilia just standing there, her hands on her staff almost shivering waiting for the moment the machine to continue moving.

The whole room went silent, waiting for that expectation that something was going to happen, the suspenseful moment waiting for the terror to continue.

A minute passed, and it didn't.

"Mathis..." Emilia said lightly, the silence of the room making even the most faint sounds audible. "...Is it over?"

I limped over to her.

My whole body hurt now. The adrenaline was gone, and I felt the pain all over my body.

Ow, my clothes were tattered, my left leg was battered, my skin has small cuts all over it, my right arm had a bunch of cuts, but thanks to the superheated a-photons they cauterized. My right glove was flat out gone, burnt away, my right hand slightly burnt.

And yet I smiled.

Emilia's pose got less tense as I limped pass the immobilized Stateria.

"Mathis?" She said.

I made it to center of the platform, aka where Emilia is.

She gave me a inquisitive look.

I raised my hand upward in response, My hand flat upward

…one...

...two...

...three...

I smiled. Emilia's face lit up as she got it.

With a little unneccesary hop, Emilia high five'd me with a big smile on her face.

"YES!" She shouted.

"Yea" I spoke " We did it..."

My body felt battered and tired. I could barely move.

"We did it!" Said Emilia who on the other hand raised her hands up in joy, ecstatic of our victory and still filled with energy. "The bigger they are the harder they fall!"

We both promptly looked at the massive dead Stateria.

"Well...the better they limp over"

We both cracked a smile and we both laughed.

The tension left Emilia, I could see her shoulders relaxing as the girl exhaled like if she just exhaled for the first time. She put her hand on my shoude-ow ow my shoulder still hurts...

"Mathis, you were amazing. Really...I...I didn't think we could do it. When I thought you were gonna fall over I thought we were done for. You're really something Mathis."

We both noticed that there was no tingle of the line shield coat, as her skin touched my raw cut shoulder.

Emilia took a step back in shock. "Ack! It's off?"

"I guess so, I suppose the last hit knocked my line shield out." I said nonchalantly.

"ACK! I coulda died! Why didn't you tell me?!" She said, almost negligent that I've nearly died a few times already now.

I pocked that response.

Instead, I unpocked a monomate I had and handed it to her.

"Here you go" I said to her "You can use it on the line shield to rep-

I felt it.

"EMILIA! LOOK OUT!"

I pushed Emilia to the side. I looked to our side. The stateria was alive, the Stateria was active. The thing wasn't dead.

I turned to face it.

It's claw was headed right towards me. The thing was going down, and it had one more move to do before it died, one last strike...

I went to raise the Aegis to defend myself.

But...

...But I couldn't.

My mind went into shock.

Move, I told myself

Move, I told myself

But I couldn't move.

Raise my shield, defend, block the attack.

Fall to the side, to get out of the way,

Raise my shield, defend, block the attack.

My body went stiff. I felt like if gravity itself has betrayed me, my whole being refusing to move one iota, aside from my single shove. My own body's weight felt like it became a pile of bricks and completely unmovable.

My body surrendered...

no...

oh no no no...it can't end like this.

Move...

MOVE!

I can't!

I won't...

The claw came do-

"MATHIS!"

* * *

My eyes opened up.  
My body felt numb...actually...I-I couldn't feel it.

I couldn't feel anything...ju...just a bit lighter...

oh...my right arm's not there anymore...I can't feel it...or my legs...

oh, there's one...it's a few feet away from me...ahhh, that's why...

...that slash...it cut me to pieces...

...yes...that whole platform...where I...my blood is all over...

...Why don't I feel anything...

...shouldn't I feel the dimates being poured in me?

is this?  
What is thi...is?  
Oh...I'm dying...

I can feel it now...it makes sense...

My body got cut apart. This must be that moment before you die...

I guess there's no Ethan Waber to save me this time...

...I really don't wanna die here...I thought I'd die older...

…

...Why do I feel so serene right now...like the weight of the world is gone...like a light wants to take me away...

Aahh...Emilia's here

She was giving me chest compressions, I saw her mouth moving like she was speaking to me. I saw another one of my mates being injected into me, before throwing it away onto a pile of others.

Like that'd work.

That light is starting to come back on her too...lines beginning to glow all across her

I suppose it makes sense...it's weird

I faintly heard the words "don't die on me"

It seemed like it was getting louder. Weird, figuring I'm missing one ear. I guess that's something the living can dwell on...

Pity I can't speak...or I can't hear her...I wanna say tell her to run.

But I can't, and all I see is her trying to revive me...and that thing waking back up...

That thing looks like it's getting back up again, I guess my bomb just shut it down just for a moment.

Emilia...run...

Run you idiot...

Run. You can get away before it kills you.

At least make my death worth somethin...

I'm...fadi...

I couldn't even keep my promise to you Nagi...I really, really wanted to see you again...man I was such a stupid kid...I should have never made that promise to you...

...Mom...

...Sis...

I'm sorry...you're gonna cry again...

...

...

...

"MATHIS! Stay with me!"

...

...

"No...oh no...no no no...oh great light no..."

...

...

"Damn it, wake up...please wake up..."

...

"No no! I don't want to be alone...please wake up, don't die on me Mathis...I...ahhh...Please don't leave me alone!"

"AHHHHHHHH**HHHHHH!**"

...

...

"**You are not alone. I am with you always"**

* * *

**Chapter 6 End.**

* * *

With the one you hope to meet again,  
The one you find, when all is dark again...

Hm...

...man those lyrics can be even more engrish and cheesy when I write them.

Granted, they're cheesy and all engrish anyway...

Wish upon a star,  
Hope to be again,  
The one you find, when all is done and through

(if the lyrics are correct)

Still, I hear that first part.

Wow...such a whiplash from the ending to this chapter? Mathis is dead, Emilia is well, something strange is happening to her, and then blam! The opening credits.

For the complete experience, go look up said opening credits and enjoy the engrish that is a mostly cool opening (if the OST is correct, Living universe is the track's name).

(They shine on!)

Aside from

(They shine on!)

...happening over and over. Eh, whateves, I still enjoyed it, even though I prefer Ignite infinity over Living universe, despite it also being very engrishy, at least they don't shine on).

Anyway,

(They shine on!)

Ahem...

They stopped shining on? Good.  
Anyway, the next chapter will, long story short, be weird. Weird to both Mathis and you (so, weird and meta-weird?), but it will make sense eventually (at this rate, definitely be some time), I promise.

It's also why 7 and 8 will be packed together...with those out of the way I might be close to actually wrapping up universe 1 and move on to the next part of our story.

This ends this author's notes, I hope you enjoy the next one, and the next two chapters of PHANTASY STAR PORTABLE 2: I NEED A NEW MAIN CHARACTER!


End file.
